Most Italian companies are ready to useand artificial intelligence and robots, not to replace its employees, but to support them in order to achieve greater efficiency and productivity.
These are some of the data contained in the first AIDP-LABLAW 2018 report by DOXA on Robots, Artificial Intelligence and work in Italy, presented in Rome on 23 October 2018 at the CNEL.
Going into detail, according to the analysis, 61% of Italian companies are ready to introduce robots and artificial intelligence in their daily work compared to 11% who believe they are totally against it.
Why say yes to these tools? The first reason is to "help" the workers. In fact, among those questioned, 93% expressed the belief that with robots and AI, people's work becomes less tiring and safer. Not only that, it is (almost) unanimously shared opinion (9 out of 10) that new technologies increase efficiency and productivity, leading to discoveries and results that were once unthinkable (85%).
The AIDP-LABLAW 2018 report underlines how 89% of companies and managers are convinced, however, that machines will never take the place of human beings. Translated into simple terms: robots and AI will never be able to completely replace the work of people, although a strong impact is expected on lower professional content jobs. According to the report, robots and artificial intelligence will favor the replacement of manual jobs with conceptual activities (for 81% of the sample) and will have negative effects only on those who are less educated and qualified. The negative data on the consequences in terms of job losses indicated by 75% of respondents should be read from this point of view.
Another interesting data concerns the way in which new technologies have integrated and are integrating into the company. For 56% of companies the use of these technologies has been to support people, as proof that these are to be considered mainly an extension of human activities and not a replacement for them. Furthermore, for 33%, these systems were used to carry out new activities that had never been carried out before. For 42% of companies, however, AI and robots have replaced tasks previously performed by employees.
“These data – reads the report – confirm the revolution taking place in labor organisations and in the guiding activities of these processes that personnel managers will be called upon to carry out and this is one of the main reasons that prompted AIDP to invest in the annual production of a report that provides data and information useful for better understanding the future of the work in the age of robots and artificial intelligence”.
“The results of the research make it clear that digitization is never just a technological issue but a strategic one – explains Isabella Covili Faggioli, President of AIDP -. There is more and more awareness that technologies will be of no use if we do not regain possession of the thought that nothing happens if people don't make it happen and that it is people who make the difference, always and in any case, by optimizing innovations and giving them the role they have, a role of support and improvement of the quality of life. It's been three centuries since the man-machine relationship is complicated because it is based on fear. Fear that machines, in this case robots, will replace people while it has always occurred that the quality of life has only improved and that new professional skills have been created.”
