Collaborating with AI: Taking a System View to Explore the Future of Work

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Anthony, Callen; Bechky, Beth A.; Fayard, Anne-Laure
• 署名单位: New York University; University of California System; University of California Davis; Universidade Nova de Lisboa
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2022.1651
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 1672-1694
• 关键词: work; TECHNOLOGY; ETHNOGRAPHY; collaboration; ai

摘要

In the wake of media hype about artificial intelligence (AI)/human collaboration, organizations are investing considerable resources into developing and using AI. In this paper, we draw on theories of technology in organizations to frame new directions for the study of what it means to work with AI. Drawing on prior literature, we consider how interactions between users and AI might unfold through theoretical lenses which cast technology as a tool and as a medium. Reflecting on how AI technologies diverge from technologies studied in the past, we propose a new perspective, which considers technology as a counterpart in a system of work that includes its design, implementation, and use. This perspective encourages developing a grounded understanding of how AI intersects with work, and therefore ethnography, building on thick descriptions, is an apt approach. We argue that relational ethnographic approaches can assist organization theorists in navigating the methodological challenges of taking a counterpart perspective and propose several strategies for future research.