Robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence have disrupted companies far and wide across the business landscape. But instead of doom and gloom and the thought that “robots will steal our jobs”, most business leaders agree that implementing automation is required in order for companies to survive in the future. The key, then, is to prepare the future workforce for these changes.

For more than five years, Littler’s Robotics, AI and Automation Practice Group has highlighted topics around technology-induced workforce changes, legal issues created, and different compliance solutions around these issues. Late last year, the group hosted its third Future Workforce Roundtable event. Along with another Littler group (the Workplace Policy Institute), the event assembled 40 word-class thought leaders and authorities in science, government, academia, law, ethics, and business to address the challenges of the future workforce.

The event addressed eight critical inquiries for the group, including:

• Whether companies should create new roles and jobs for displaced workers, or attempt to preserve jobs that would otherwise be eliminated;
• Future roles and jobs created by disruptive technologies, and how does a current workforce become qualified for these positions;
•  How does a global contingent workforce transform within the context of current and changing workforce laws and regulations;
• Will privacy and cybersecurity be redefined with the future global workforce?
• Is full transparency possible, needed, or counterproductive when identifying, reducing, or preventing algorithmic bias?
• What are the legislative, regulatory, and judicial issues around these technologies?
• Will AI and robotic competition between governments accelerate the arrival of these technologies in Europe and the U.S.?
• What are the most important and immediate ethical challenges of AI in the workplace?

In this report, authors from Littler provide summaries of the roundtable discussions around each of these inquiries, along with analysis and takeaway messages for companies affected by the disruption of workers by AI and robotics. We’ve combined two reports: “Future Workforce – 2018 Thought Leadership Roundtable Report” and “Thought Leaders Predict AI’s Impact on the Workforce” into one easy download.

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