Seminar Series with Matt Beane: Engineering Skill

On April 15, 2024, Stanford Digital Fellow Matt Beane shared current research, “How Developing AI-Enabled Robots and Nonprofessional Ability Went Hand in Hand at JointBot.”
Abstract
Professionals routinely rely on nonprofessionals, and research depicts this relationship as either irrelevant or detrimental to nonprofessionals’ skill development. This dynamic is particularly problematic given an increasingly polarized skill landscape and can be intensified by artificial intelligence use. Yet prior work in technology and organizing suggests this is not necessary: when professionals share control, organizations can develop capabilities, improve outcomes, and build nonprofessional skill at the same time. To explore this possibility, we examine JointBot, a vendor in our three-year, US-wide, multi-sited field study of AI-enabled robotics in warehousing. The firm had chosen a technological design that required direct robot control, so hired nonprofessionals for this task. Professionals valued their insight into system performance, so included them in complex technical problem-solving, which enriched nonprofessionals’ skills and careers. This was possible because professionals shared the control task and workers had slack time. Workers expanded skill accelerated design iteration and improved early system performance, though these effects were strongest when system reliability was low. Beyond explaining how nonprofessionals might build skill through work with professionals, this study contributes to our understanding of problem-solving in learning as well as the ways that humans can complement automation in the workplace.

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