By Dr. Esko Penttinen, Associate Professor at Aalto University, Academic Research Fellow at Center for Digital Business Growth
Cognitive automation powered by advanced intelligent technologies enables organizations to automate their knowledge-work tasks. Though offering higher efficiency and lower costs, cognitive automation exacerbates erosion of humans’ skills and expertise on the automated tasks. Letting go of obsolete skills is necessary to reap the technology’s benefits – however, erosion of essential human expertise is problematic if workers remain accountable for tasks where they lack sufficient understanding, rendering them incapable to respond if the automation fails.
Based on Research
Rinta-Kahila, T., Penttinen, E., Salovaara, A., Soliman, W., & Ruissalo, J. (2023). The vicious circles of skill erosion: A case study of cognitive automation. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 24(5), 1378-1412.
Learn more about Esko Penttinen’s research.