Work Of The Future | IPC (original) (raw)
New technologies, better jobs
The Initiative
We envision an economy where dramatic advances in automation and computation go hand in hand with improved opportunities and economic security for workers. Growing out of MIT's Work of the Future Task Force (2018-2020), the Work of the Future Initiative at the Industrial Performance Center conducts multidisciplinary research on the ways technology is changing work.
Generative AI Working Group
MIT’s Work of the Future Initiative is convening a multidisciplinary working group of industry, policy, and academic leaders to examine how the design and implementation of generative AI tools can contribute to higher-quality jobs and inclusive access to the latest technologies.
Automation Clinic
The Automation Clinic is an applied research and education program to understand how organizations make new technologies work in practice. MIT researchers and their partners work with organizations to learn the problems they aim to solve with automation, the challenges they face in deploying them, and the consequences for workers, customers, and society.
Article | September 24, 2023
A Smarter Strategy for Using Robots
Despite advances in automation technology, the promise of productive and flexible automation, with minimal involvement of human workers, is far from reality, for two main reasons. First, adoption of automation technology has been limited. Second, when firms do automate, what they gain in productivity they tend to lose in process flexibility, resulting in what the […]
Publications
February 9, 2024
Work Organization and High-paying Jobs
Faculty Affiliate, Work of the Future
Dylan Nelson is a Work of the Future Fellow and a postdoctoral scholar at MIT Sloan.
Letian Zhang
High-paying factory jobs in the 1940s were an engine of egalitarian economic growth for a generation. Are there alternate forms of work organization that deliver similar benefits for frontline workers? Work organization varies by types of complexity and their degree of employer control. Technical and tacit knowledge tasks receive higher pay for signaling or developing […]
Article | October 9, 2023
The State of Industrial Robotics: Emerging Technologies, Challenges, and Key Research Directions
Julie Shah is Faculty Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.
Lindsay Sanneman is a PhD candidate in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT
Christopher Fourie is a PhD candidate in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a member of the Interactive Robotics Group.
Robotics and related technologies are central to the ongoing digitization and advancement of manufacturing. In recent years, a variety of strategic initiatives around the world including “Industry 4.0”, introduced in Germany in 2011 have aimed to improve and connect manufacturing technologies in order to optimize production processes.
Article | October 9, 2023
How American Adults Obtain Work Skills: Results of a New National Survey
Osterman is the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Professor of Human Resources and Management at MIT Sloan, as well as a member of the Department of Urban Planning.
Employer-provided training is an important determinant of economic outcomes, yet our understanding of its extent and distribution is well out of date—with the most recent national survey being from 2008. This article updates our understanding of employer-provided training.