BFH researchers take a stand in the field of augmented intelligence

Technologies such as robotics or artificial intelligence are nowadays put to practice in many different applications to enable new forms of human-machine collaboration and automation. While many authors focus on the threat of human replacement and job loss, a group of BFH researchers argues that we need to pay attention to other, more pressing challenges linked to new forms of human-machine interactions, including work alienation, a 2-class society, decision-making and fairness. A position paper has recently been published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI, in the special section Ethics in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.

Leveraging human-machine complementary

The authors call for greater attention to develop augmentation technologies that empower humans rather than mechanise and deskill them. They lay out the advantages of such a path, stressing that the industry can truly benefit from new technologies only by leveraging human-machine complementarity. “To cope with the growing versatility of the market, companies will achieve the largest boosts in performance by combining the flexibility of human work with the efficiency of automation”, argues Prof. Dr Sarah Dégallier Rochat, the corresponding author of the publication.

BFH has been researching and teaching in the field of digital transformation for years. It focuses particularly on putting people and their needs at the center when developing new technologies.