Work and Technology: Choices and Outcomes

0.5 Course Units

That technology affects work is a commonplace - but we accept technology’s impact too readily as inevitable and unchangeable. This 0.5 CU course challenges the mindset of technological determinism and explores what choice points are available to managers implementing new technologies as well as the engineers who design them. • Module 1: “Technology and Its Impact on Jobs and Skills” considers which technologies deserve the characterization of “revolutionary” due to their capacity to change entire organizations – and even societies — vs. those that only substitute narrowly for past technologies. We’ll examine past anxieties related to automation and evaluate the extent to which the “worst-case” scenarios about employment loss have or have not come to pass – and evaluate claims of “this time it’s different”. • Module 2: “Intelligent Technologies: How Will They Affect Work and Organizations?” explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing core “managing people” activities (e.g., hiring and performance appraisal) – plus shifting the locus of management away from human bosses and into algorithms. We’ll examine controversies around “gig work”, i.e., the positives of worker schedule flexibility vs. the negatives of algorithmic control. We’ll also consider the metaverse and its potential for unleashing human creativity and fostering richer and more nuanced virtual communication - as well as providing organizations with new ways to monitor and control. • Module 3: “Technology and Policy” examines three policy issues. First, how can we inject more ethical criteria into the development of artificial intelligence and algorithms affecting work? Second, what are the pros and cons of “universal basic income”, whose premise is that technological change will soon lead to an unprecedented amount of job elimination? Third, how does “technology make us dumber”? How can we avoid the obsolescence of critical human skills? Take this course to be ready to manage the strategic and analytic issues involving the design and implementation of technology at work - and for a preview of your own future work life. Requirements include: class participation; in-class quizzes; interviewing someone you know to ask how technology has affected their work life; and the “In Hindsight” group assignment looking back on past scares about a particular technology’s impact on work - and what actually happened. Spring 0.5 Course Units