SThree plc

10/30/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/30/2024 03:22

Forces of STEM The promise of tech positive leadership

VO: This interview is part of Forces of STEM, a research campaign produced by SThree in partnership with FT Longitude.

Ben Bschor:

The world of STEM is evolving fast, economic, technological, and environmental forces are reshaping skills and sectors, giving today's business leaders a critical opportunity to reimagine tomorrow's world of STEM.

Welcome to Forces of STEM. I'm your host, Ben Bschor, Group Editor at FT Longitude.

And in this episode, we flip the script on the often-heard narrative that AI is coming for workers' jobs. Instead, we ask the critical question: how ready are company leaders to make the AI revolution a reality for their workers?

Joining me to discuss this is Shalin Jyotishi, Founder and Managing Director of the Future of Work and Innovation Economy initiative at New America.

Shalin, thank you for joining me today.

Shalin Jyotishi:

Thank you for having me, Ben.

Ben Bschor:

Shalin, to start with, could you give us a quick overview of New America, and your role there as the founder of the Future of Work and Innovation Economy Initiative?

Shalin Jyotishi:

Absolutely. New America is a nonpartisan think and do tank based in Washington D.C. We focus on research and storytelling, and policy analysis and policy development in a variety of areas. The initiative that I run is a programme that's really focused on solving some of the public problems that arise at the intersection of emerging technologies and workforce development and the labour force.

In broad strokes, we focus on improving and aligning policies and practices for technological innovation and scientific progress, such that it can help grow the American middle class and benefit all people.

In a tactical sense, that means studying, for example, how open access education training institutions, such as community and technical colleges, can open new doors to jobs in the innovation economy that are either catalysed by advances in emerging technologies or shaped by them. You may not suspect it, but today you don't have to go to MIT or Stanford to work in quantum science, or AI or biotechnology. There's a growing skilled technical workforce in some of these "future of work occupations" that many community and technical colleges train for as well.

As another example, we're examining how technology, including those rooted in AI, can augment workers, improve job quality and working conditions, make our jobs better, safer, maybe even more enjoyable. That may look like capacity building of labour unions or worker organisations to be more savvy collaborators with employers on the implementation of workplace technologies, or it may mean supporting employers and HR leaders in navigating AI transitions such that they secure the productivity promises of these new technologies, but also improve employee retention and engagement along the way.

This particular work builds off of one of my prior roles on the artificial intelligence team at the World Economic Forum. I had the opportunity to lead a project examining how Industry 4.0 technologies and AI can advance working conditions. That was a couple of years before ChatGPT came on the scene, so it's been interesting to observe the evolution since then.