[Air-L] Fwd: Fw: 4s2019 open panel on Automation, Skill and Identity in an age of AI

[Janaki Srinivasan]

See below for a call for abstracts on automation and identity for a 4S
panel co-organized by my colleague, Bidisha. Might be of interest to some
of you!

Apologies for cross posting.

Janaki Srinivasan
Assistant Professor, IIIT-Bangalore


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*From:* Prof.Bidisha Chaudhuri
*Sent:* 19 January 2019 11:54
*To:* Janaki Srinivasan
*Subject:* CfP: 4s2019 open panel on Automation, Skill and Identity in an
age of AI


Dear Janaki,


We are looking for paper abstract (250 words) submissions for our open
panel at the Annual Meeting of 4S 2019, New Orleans (September 4-7, 2019).
Could you please circulate the call in your networks?


*The last date of submission is 1st February 2019.*
*Panel Description* *11. Automation, Skill and Identity in an Age of AI
<https://www.4s2019.org/accepted-open-panels/>*
*Organized by Bidisha Chaudhuri and Soumyo Das, International Institute of
Information Technology Bangalore*

Barely thirty years ago information technology (IT) was considered to be
the final answer to “the labour question” (Zuboff 1988). We are again at a
historical juncture, where AI-based automation seems to bring back a
similar promise (Levy & Murnane 2004). Whether this new machine age will
lead to displacement of human labour or will create new economic
opportunities is a matter of a different debate. However, with increasing
delegation of human activities to intelligent agents, what we definitely
witness is a shift in human skill trajectory (Bright 1958). Michael Polanyi
in his book, The Tacit Dimension (1966), argued that much of human
knowledge and capability stems from skills and rulesets that lies
underneath our conscious understanding. Moreover, human abilities such as
empathy, sympathy, trust are often transmitted to us via culture, tradition
and are beyond the general directive of ‘skill’. Drawing on earlier work on
automation and skill (Spenner 1983; Adler 1987; Vallas 1990), we explore
these grey zones in human skills/activities, which, while undergoing the
current phase of AI-based automation, go beyond a linear trajectory of
deskilling and reskilling (Acemoglu & Restrepo 2018). It manifests rather
as a more complex intertwining between human activities, technology, and
organization structure.  The objective of the panel is to bring together an
analysis of these nuanced process through which human skills are evolving
and will evolve, given increasing reliance on AI-based automation and how
this will impact human identity, which in the modern capitalist system,
relies on our occupation.

Thanks,
Bidisha