The Ethical Implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) For Meaningful Work

Abstract

The increasing workplace use of artificially intelligent (AI) technologies has implications for the experience of meaningful human work. Meaningful work refers to the perception that one’s work has worth, significance, or a higher purpose. The development and organisational deployment of AI is accelerating, but the ways in which this will support or diminish opportunities for meaningful work and the ethical implications of these changes remain under-explored. This conceptual paper is positioned at the intersection of the meaningful work and ethical AI literatures and offers a detailed assessment of the ways in which the deployment of AI can enhance or diminish employees’ experiences of meaningful work. We first outline the nature of meaningful work and draw on philosophical and business ethics accounts to establish its ethical importance. We then explore the impacts of three paths of AI deployment (replacing some tasks, ‘tending the machine’, and amplifying human skills) across five dimensions constituting a holistic account of meaningful work, and finally assess the ethical implications. In doing so we help to contextualise the meaningful work literature for the era of AI, extend the ethical AI literature into the workplace, and conclude with a range of practical implications and future research directions.

Managing workuniverses with workers and robots: the implications of digital-driven spatiotemporal dynamics for HRM

“…, 2020; Ashok et al. , 2022; Bankins and Formosa, 2023). Intrusive data collection as well as invasive data management practices can not only demotivate workers (Alder et al.…”

“…The management of new spatiotemporal boundaries propelled by digital-driven spatiotemporal dynamics induces the utilization of digital instruments to allocate, control and evaluate work. If this utilization might help optimize and even recognize possible work achievement, it arouses in parallel the necessity to integrate ethical considerations in the management of digital-driven workuniverses, in particular, the role granted to digital-driven data, the modality from which these data are collected and the manner from which they will be interpreted in management (Brey, 1999;Stein et al, 2019;Gal et al, 2020;Ashok et al, 2022;Bankins and Formosa, 2023). Intrusive data collection as well as invasive data management practices can not only demotivate workers (Alder et al, 2007) but also arouse a vicious cycle in organizational functioning (Gal et al, 2020).…”

Can Digitally Transformed Work Be Virtuous?

“…Wilson et al (2017) distinguishes among four such profiles: trainers, who manage data and design algorithms; explainers, who interpret AI outcomes; architects, who organize and adopt AI systems; and ethicists, who set guidelines for accountability. They act as interfaces between AI and society, exemplifying different ways of "tending" to AI, not only "minding" mundane tasks but also "managing" complex ones to amplify human agency (Langlois 2003;Bankins and Formosa 2023).…”

“…An outcome of work digitalization is more pronounced polarization, not only in income, skills, and work conditions, but also in opportunities for virtue. Technology is always ambivalent, and digitalization no different, in its capacity to produce opposite results depending on user intention and conditions (Bankins and Formosa 2023). Digitalization has widened the worker divide through relentless and recursive labor substitution.…”

“…What we have, above all, is an algocracy (the rule of algorithms) and work-place precarity (no job security, dismal wages, devalued work) (Cherry 2016), representing almost insurmountable stumbling blocks to virtuous human agency. Some dystopians fear that there won’t be enough meaningful work (Bankins and Formosa 2023). Others are preparing for a postwork future, imagining institutions that will distribute income beyond labor markets and current welfare systems (Korinek and Juelfs 2022).…”