Earlier this month, HRE reported on the phenomenon of “de-skilling,” a term that’s really just code for “replacing employees with automation.” And while no one likes the idea of being usurped on the job by a robot, a new study suggests that some workers would be just fine with having one for a boss.
That’s what researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab found when they studied groups of two humans and one robot working together in a manufacturing environment. In fact, the authors found that human workers participating in their study actually preferred taking orders from an automaton, and that handing over the reins to a robot was the most efficient means of accomplishing the task at hand.
In this case, the task at hand was assembling Legos, in an experiment that replicated a factory setting. Only the human workers could put together the Legos, which had to be brought from a “fetch” station to a “build” station. While only humans could assemble the Legos, either a human or robot could fetch them.
“In our research we were seeking to find that sweet spot for ensuring that the human workforce is both satisfied and productive,” said Matthew Gombolay, a PhD student at CSAIL, and lead author of the study, in a statement.
“We discovered that the answer is to actually give machines more autonomy, if it helps people to work together more fluently with robot teammates.”
Gombolay and his team reached this conclusion by assigning groups of two humans and one robot working in one of three conditions. In the manual scenario, all tasks were allocated by a human. In another, fully autonomous environment, all duties were assigned by the robot. In the third, semi-autonomous setting, one human consigned jobs to him or herself, while a robot gave tasks to the other human.
The fully autonomous condition proved to be the most effective in terms of getting the job done, and the method most preferred by the human workers, who were more likely to say the bots “better understood them” and “improved the efficiency of the team,” according to the authors.
If this all seems a bit strange, and maybe even a tad scary, fear not. This MIT experiment isn’t the first step toward a workplace run by cold, lifeless cyborgs, said Gombolay.
Putting a robot in charge, as the MIT team did, simply means that tasks are delegated, scheduled and coordinated via a human-generated algorithm, he said.
“Instead of coming up with a plan by hand, it’s about developing tools to help create plans automatically.”
This algorithm, he said, can also conduct on-the-fly re-planning, enabling the instant development of an alternate schedule for a task if a new part arrives or a machine malfunctions, for example.
Down the road, similar algorithms may have utility for human/human collaborative efforts such as scheduling hospital resources; search-and-rescue drones; and even situations involving human and robot cooperation, in which the robot could aid with discrete building and construction tasks, Gombolay added.
Hmm. Such applications could very well be useful in some industries, and may still leave some work for humans to do in the future as well. Maybe we don’t have to cede total control to our new robotic overlords just yet.Twitter It!