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Working Paper
Reshaping the Future of Work: How Workers Navigate the Potentiality of Artificial Intelligence
Author(s)
Existing research suggests that many workers do not readily adapt to artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, especially when they perceive that AI has the potential to lead to negative outcomes in the future, such as decreased autonomy, restricted voice, and increased surveillance. Much of this research shows that when AI systems do not serve workers’ interests, they react by ‘gaming’ the system, devising workarounds, or engaging in more overt resistance in the short term. Less is known about how workers collectively try to reshape the long-term potentiality of AI and new technologies so that they enhance rather than erode their interests. Drawing on qualitative data, spanning four years and multiple organizations, our study uncovers four future-shaping activities workers engage in: 1) building capacity, 2) shaping narratives, 3) experimenting, and 4) setting guardrails. Leveraging insights from the future-making literature we theorize how these activities not only shift workers’ perspectives to the long-term potentiality of AI in organizations, but also enable them to create concrete measures to steer how AI is implemented in their workplaces. These workers reshape the trajectory of a potentially threatening technology. In so doing, they engage with organizational futures, which we conceptualize as the future-making of work.
Date Published:
2025
Citations:
Send, Hendrick, Hatim Rahman. 2025. Reshaping the Future of Work: How Workers Navigate the Potentiality of Artificial Intelligence.