Analysts and technologists overplayed long ago the idea automation will replace the human workforce, but MIT’s future of work task force found some truth in need to prepare for emerging technology disruption.

MIT launched the future of work task force in 2018 in response to the idea that robots are taking away jobs, but found the technology shaping the future of work actually moves very slowly. CIOs and other business leaders have time to prepare, if they start investing in skills and adaptations now.

Technology’s impact on jobs today mostly stems from mature IT that was introduced decades ago, such as the internet and cloud computing.

“There is a huge difference between when the technology first comes out of the lab, and when it gets deployed at scale,” Irving Wladawsky-Berger, visiting lecturer in information technology at the MIT Sloan School of Management, said at the event.

With AI, for example, establishing human-machine collaboration “takes a lot of research and experimentation, and that’s probably why AI is taking its time being deployed at scale,” Wladawsky-Berger said.

 

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