February 23, 2021
“Are workers going to be replaced by machines?” Artificial Intelligence (AI) has brought new urgency to answering this question. In this seminar two researchers who have written about the limits of AI will lead our thinking. Dr Marta Rocchi from Dublin City University and Northumbria’s Dr Angus Robson have published separate academic papers on AI in the context of care work. Both have argued that while machines can “do”, only human beings can “work.”
The seminar will take us through the four industrial revolutions. This history is necessary if we are to understand why work is all too often thought of in terms of production rather than relationships. Care work provides an excellent example of why this thinking can lead us astray for it is all about the specific attention that is paid to a particular person and cannot be appreciated if we reduce it to the ability to perform a task or a role. In the age of Covid, a new appreciation has emerged for this sort of work and our speakers will argue that this has important lessons for how we think about the future of work and its relationship to AI.”
Marta Rocchi, PhD 