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TECHNEQUALITY
Technological innovations like increasingly sophisticated robotics tools, machine learning and artificial intelligence can improve business productivity, but they also have a wider impact on the labour market and society. Researchers in the Technequality project are investigating the social impact of technological innovation, as Professor Mark Levels explains.
The development of innovative
technologies opens up new commercial opportunities and can improve business productivity, yet technological change is also by nature disruptive and can mean that some jobs are no longer necessary or economically viable. Much of the literature in this area addresses productivity issues and questions around how many jobs will be created or destroyed by new innovations, yet there is comparatively little on the impact of technological change on social inequalities. “Very little research has been done on which social groups would be most affected,” says Mark Levels, Professor of Health, Education and Work at Maastricht University. This is an issue at the heart of Technequality, a project bringing together researchers in several different disciplines. “The questions we try to address are at the intersection of sociology and economics. The impact of technological change on work, and workers, is very close to the heart of both economists and sociologists,” says Professor Levels.
Industrial revolutions
Researchers are addressing six main questions in the project around the impact of technological innovation, building on comparisons with previous periods of change, for example the shift towards using machines and new manufacturing processes in the first industrial revolution. The current period of technological change, commonly described as the fourth industrial revolution, is thought to mainly resemble the first in terms of social impact and disruptive potential. “The question here is, do new technologies augment labour, or are they a substitute for it?” outlines Professor Levels. Where previous technological innovations were mostly used for routine tasks like drilling holes or tightening screws, modern robotics and artificial intelligence tools can
now take on more complex tasks, which Professor Levels says is likely to affect the nature of work. “They can increasingly do things in a way that really mimics human intelligence, including decision-making,” he says. “The development of AI and robotics will have an impact on all economic sectors, including the service sector.”
Many of these technologies are at an advanced stage, and the factors limiting their application are primarily cultural or organisational rather than technical. However, many companies are now looking at how to implement AI, robotics - or a combination of both - into their value chains, and Professor Levels believes growth could be rapid once these tools are more established. “Scalability is an issue. But if a chat-bot is trained for a company HR department, many of the questions it can answer will also be relevant in other companies. So, once you have something up and running, it can very easily be implemented in other environments,” he explains. In this scenario, the value of specific HR skills and knowledge
decreases; Technequality researchers are exploring the wider social implications of this technological shift. “What happens if social skills become more important than professional credentials? What does that do to social inequalities? What does it do for inter-generational mobility?” asks Professor Levels. “What are the consequences for education? Should we for example teach different subjects in schools?”
The wider context here is the challenge of equipping people with the skills they need to be productive in the economy of the future,
Automation is happening right now, and
it will affect our lives. I would like people to start talking about this – if you have children, what subjects
should they be learning about?
against a backdrop of ongoing technological disruption. Some European countries have extensive vocational education systems, which prepare students for a specific career, but Professor Levels says there may be issues with this approach. “These jobs may disappear or their skills requirements may change. It may be more difficult to re-train someone with occupationally specific skills than someone with the general skills that contribute to active learning,” he points out. This issue must be looked at holistically, believes Professor Levels, taking the entire education system into account. “We have to look at the entire education system, including vocational education and tertiary education, and really take lifelong learning seriously,” he stresses. “Most of the people who will have to develop new skills left the education system a long time ago. So re-skilling will probably mean that they have to go back to either informal or non-formal learning, or to school. How to retrain large groups of people whose skills are obsolete is one of the vexing questions of our time.”
An employer can play a role here in providing training, and many companies across the commercial sector take their responsibilities in this area seriously. However, companies may not always be willing to train staff at risk of redundancy, which affects social inequalities. “If you are in a huge reorganisation, with 30 percent of your workforce being dismissed because of automation, there is no incentive for a company to invest in these people’s skills, because they will not benefit,” points out Professor Levels. A second issue is that companies tend to select their most productive people for training and instruction, leaving others behind. “These may be the people who need re-skilling or up-skilling the most,” continues Professor Levels. “This is why I think governments have a role to play in facilitating training and education, to ensure that people who have difficulty learning at an older age don’t fall behind, which would then widen inequalities between generations. We know that the older you get, the harder it generally becomes to learn something new.”
Universal basic income
A further strand of the project’s research involves investigating the impact of different forms of social welfare as a way of mitigating the impact of unemployment related to the introduction of new technology. One idea that has attracted a lot of attention from all parts of the political spectrum is the concept of a universal basic income; the debate on this has been quite ideologically-driven, the aim now for Professor Levels and his colleagues is to provide more data. “As scientists we try to assess the impact. So, if you’re going to implement a universal basic income then what will the consequences be?” he outlines. This work represents an important contribution to the debate around automation and its social impact, which Professor Levels hopes to bring to wider prominence. “Automation is happening right now, and it is affecting our lives. I would like people to start talking about this, not just in government circles, but also around the kitchen table. Ask yourself – if you have children, what subjects should they be learning about? What education system should they be enrolled in?” he asks. “Their future employability and social situation will depend on us answering these questions correctly.”
Technological inequality – understanding the relation between recent technological innovations and social inequalities Project Objectives
Technological innovations in robotics and artificial intelligence create pressing societal questions. How will work change? Who will benefit most? How will innovations affect social inequalities? And what can governments do to cushion technological inequalities? TECHNEQUALITY unites a multidisciplinary group of scholars from Europe’s most renowned universities to answer these questions and work with policymakers to co-create policies that work.
Project Funding
The Technological Project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 822330.
Project Partners
• Maastricht University (ROA) • University of Oxford (Oxford Martin School, Skope) • Cambridge Econometrics (CE) • WZB Berlin Social Science Centre • Tallinn University (Sociology dept) • Tilburg University (Tranzo) • Stockholm University (SOFI) • European University Institute (SPS)
Contact Details
Project Coordinator, Professor Mark Levels Maastricht University School of Business and Economics ROA Tongersestraat 53 6211 LM Maastricht T: +31 43 3882844 E: technequality-sbe@maastrichtuniversity.nl W: https://technequality-project.eu/
Professor Mark Levels
Technequality founder and consortium leader Professor Mark Levels is program director at the Research Centre for Education and the Labor Market (ROA) of Maastricht University and fellow of the Berlin Social Science Centre (WZB).
