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MIT Task Force Report Emphasizes Need to Improve Workers' Economic Prospects
The MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, an MIT-wide task force formed in the spring of 2018 by MIT President L. Rafael Reif, recently released its report—and the report includes an extensive focus on improving economic prospects for U.S. workers, particularly those who lack a college education. “One thing is abundantly clear from the Task Force [on the Work of the Future] report: Automation is transforming our work, our lives, our society,” said Reif as he discussed the new report in his opening remarks at the 2020 MIT AI and the Work of the Future Congress, a virtual event held in November.
“Fortunately, the harsh societal consequences that concern us all are not inevitable,” Reif continued. “How we design tomorrow’s technologies and the policies and practices we build around them will profoundly shape their impact. Whether the outcome is inclusive or exclusive, fair or laissez-faire is up to us—all of us.”
The Task Force report, “The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines,” draws on the work of scholars from many disciplines across MIT. In the report, authors David Autor, David Mindell, and Elisabeth Reynolds emphasize that technological change is both “replacing existing work and creating new work,” rather than “eliminating work altogether,” as is sometimes feared in popular discussions of the future of work.
Autor and Mindell are Co-Chairs of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, and Reynolds is its Executive Director. Autor is the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT, Mindell is a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT, and Reynolds is Principal Research Scientist and Executive Director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center as well as a Lecturer in the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning.
The report authors note that “momentous impacts of technological change are unfolding gradually,” giving society time to prepare. Autor, Mindell, and Reynolds conclude that, in the U.S., that preparation should include revamping labor market institutions to provide better economic and career prospects to workers without college degrees and improving training and lifelong learning options for workers. Failure to take such measures, the report authors emphasize, will further increase economic inequality and popular mistrust of technological innovation. In fact, one of the U.S.’s central tasks in preparing for the work of the future, Autor, Mindell, and Reynolds write, should be “building a future for work that harvests the dividends of rapidly advancing automation and ever-more powerful computers to deliver opportunity and economic security for workers.”
The report includes research conducted by several faculty members who are part of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research (IWER) and its affiliated initiative, the Good Companies, Good Jobs Initiative at MIT Sloan (GCGJ). In particular, the Task Force report cited worker voice research that MIT Sloan Professor Thomas A. Kochan and others conducted in conjunction with the Good Companies, Good Jobs Initiative, as well as a survey that MIT Sloan Professor Paul Osterman conducted in conjunction with GCGJ on how U.S. workers gain their skills. Kochan, who is the George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management at MIT Sloan and Osterman, who is the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Professor of Human Resources and Management at MIT Sloan, are both members of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future.
IWER faculty expressed appreciation for both the Task Force’s work and for the emphasis its report gives to work-related topics of long-standing interest to IWER scholars. “The most important thing about this report is that it reflects the conclusions reached by a broad cross-section of the MIT faculty,” said Kochan, who has written extensively about the need to modernize U.S. labor law so it is better suited to the 21st-century economy. “For this group of MIT engineers, scientists, and social scientists to reach the conclusion that the nation needs to rebuild its labor market institutions, transform organizational practices, and update public policies sends a powerful statement that by working together we can indeed shape work of the future.”
Erin L. Kelly, Sloan Distinguished Professor of Work and Organization Studies at MIT Sloan and Co-Director of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research, sees connections between the work of the Task Force, the MIT AI and the Work of the Future Congress conference it cosponsored, and IWER’s ongoing work on improving employment conditions. Kelly observed:
IWER faculty expressed appreciation for both the Task Force’s work and for the emphasis its report gives to work-related topics of long-standing interest to IWER scholars. “The most important thing about this report is that it reflects the conclusions reached by a broad cross-section of the MIT faculty,” said Kochan, who has written extensively about the need to modernize U.S. labor law so it is better suited to the 21st-century economy. “For this group of MIT engineers, scientists, and social scientists to reach the conclusion that the nation needs to rebuild its labor market institutions, transform organizational practices, and update public policies sends a powerful statement that by working together we can indeed shape work of the future.”
Erin L. Kelly, Sloan Distinguished Professor of Work and Organization Studies at MIT Sloan and Co-Director of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research, sees connections between the work of the Task Force, the MIT AI and the Work of the Future Congress conference it cosponsored, and IWER’s ongoing work on improving employment conditions. Kelly observed:
“It is an important moment for MIT to speak up on the future of work, to ask the questions about how new technologies and the policies that surround them can move our society in the direction of more inclusion and broader prosperity—and the Report and the AI and the Work of the Future Congress did a terrific job of seizing that moment.
We need to ask a set of questions in relation to each other: The question of ‘What technologies are emerging and will be critical for the next decades?’ needs to be asked with the question ‘What do we need to do to create an inclusive future of work, promoting the well-being of people and the planet?’ I see that happening in the Work of The Future Task Force and it is inspiring.
One theme that stood out to me was that the future of work depends on how, exactly, new technologies are implemented in real workplaces, as well as how workers, consumers, and citizens are brought into the technology design process. My colleagues at IWER and MIT Sloan more broadly have studied how these kinds of organizational changes happen—and how to do them well so that the promise of the new technologies is recognized and the pitfalls and perils are minimized. I’m excited to see how the Work of the Future conversations continue at MIT and how we can offer practical guidance to companies and to policy makers. This was a great foundation, and I know we can build on it in the next few years.”
Barbara Dyer, Senior Lecturer and Executive Director of the Good Companies, Good Jobs Initiative at MIT Sloan, reflected on the way that the Task Force created an informal cross-disciplinary community of scholars who explored these questions collaboratively. She commented:
“I was really pleased that this group of scholars from across MIT came together with open minds and determination to understand what is really happening, challenging the prevailing narratives about the rise of robots and end of work. We began the Task Force’s deliberations in 2018, as we began the Good Companies. Good Jobs Initiative in 2017, with the recognition that we are not destined to follow a particular path; we have choices. What matters is what we choose to emphasize in R&D and how we choose to deploy technology. These choices have bearing on the quality of work in the jobs we change and the new ones we create. In a 2018 Good Companies, Good Jobs digest on this topic, we made the point that humans and machines together can accomplish more than each operating solo. My colleague Tom Kochan likes to say that humans give wisdom to machines. I like to think of the relationship between humans and intelligent machines as a dance and we are only just learning the choreography.
The Task Force meetings were remarkable as various members shared their research and their perspectives. It was a genuine roll-up-the-sleeves effort, and I feel amazingly lucky to have been at that table. Most gratifying to me was the near-universal concern about the gaps in the support we provide to workers and the recognition that this is something we can address.
The Task Force’s two-and-a-half-year effort not only confirmed that the present challenge is to make the future of work work for everyone—it also gave meaning to this notion with evidence, accessible frameworks, and concrete examples of what we can do now to make the work world better in the future. I am honored to have played a small role in the Task Force and excited about the work ahead for GCGJ/IWER as we continue to provide research-based evidence and shine a light on what’s possible in the workplace.”
Read the report of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future