Future of Work
How will AI impact human labor, from individuals to cities? And how can humans build resilience to this change.
As advances in robotics and artificial intelligence revive concerns about the impact of automation on jobs, many questions loom: How will automation affect employment in the workplace, and how will this impact differentially affect different communities, cities and economies? How will human workers adapt to a world with AI tools, co-workers, and managers? How can employers and policy-makers respond to such challenges? We use tools from economics, behavioral science, complex systems and urban science to explore this question.
Video: OEB Talk
Scientific Writings
Dong, M., Brinkmann, L., Sherif, O., Wang, S., Zhang, X., Bonnefon, J. F., & Rahwan, I. (2025). Experimental Evidence That AI-Managed Workers Tolerate Lower Pay Without Demotivation. arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.21752.
V. Capraro, A. Lentsch, D. Acemoglu, S. Akgun, A. Akhmedova, E. Bilancini, J.-F. Bonnefon, P. Brañas-Garza, L. Butera, K. M. Douglas, J. AC Everett, G. Gigerenzer, C. Greenhow, D. A. Hashimoto, J. Holt-Lunstad, J. Jetten, S. Johnson, W. H. Kunz, C. Longoni, P. Lunn, S. Natale, S. Paluch, I. Rahwan, N. Selwyn, V. Singh, S. Suri, J. Sutcliffe, J. Tomlinson, S. van der Linden, P. A. M. Van Lange, F. Wall, J. J. Van Bavel, R. Viale (2024). The impact of generative artificial intelligence on socioeconomic inequalities and policy making. PNAS Nexus, 3(6).
Dong, M., Bonnefon, J. F., & Rahwan, I. (2024). Toward Human-Centered AI Management: Methodological Challenges and Future Directions. Technovation.Volume 131, March 2024, 102953
[Preprint]M.R. Frank, E. Moro, T. South, A. Rutherford, A. Pentland, B. Taska, I Rahwan (2024). Network constraints on worker mobility. Nature Cities 1, 94–104.
[Free read-only version]H. C. Chen,* X. Li, M. Frank, X. Qin, W. Xu, M. Cebrian, I. Rahwan (2022). Automation impacts on China’s polarized job market. Journal of Computational Social Science. 5, 517–535
* Equal contributionsE. Moro,* M. R. Frank,* A. Pentland, A. Rutherford, M. Cebrian, I. Rahwan (2021). Universal resilience patterns in labor markets. Nature Communications. 12, 1972
* Equal contributions
[Media: MIT News]W. Xu, X. Qin, X. Li, H. Chen, M. Frank, A. Rutherford, A. Reeson, I. Rahwan (2021). Developing China’s workforce skill taxonomy reveals extent of labor market polarization. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 8:187
H. Chen , Y. Kryvasheyeu, W. Xu , Y. Huang, J. Deng, S. Ren , X. Li, I. Rahwan, M. Cebrian (2021). Evolution of urban forms observed from space. EPJ Data Science. 10:27
I. Hong, M. R. Frank, I. Rahwan, W.-S. Jung, H. Youn (2020). The universal pathway to innovative urban economies. Science Advances. 6(34):eaba4934
[Media: Northwestern University, Quartz, Forbes]M. R. Frank, D. Autor, J. E. Bessen, E. Brynjolfsson, M. Cebrian, D. J. Deming, M. Feldman, M. Groh, J. Lobo, E. Moro, D. Wang, H. Youn, I. Rahwan (2019). Toward Understanding the Impact of AI on Labor. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116(14):6531–6539
[Selected media: Forbes]A. Alabdulkareem,* M. R. Frank,* L. Sun, B. AlShebli, C. Hidalgo, I. Rahwan (2018). Unpacking the polarization of workplace skills. Science Advances, 4(7):eaao6030
[Selected Media: Summary on Medium, AAAS, WBUR, Axios, Nature Middle East]
* Equal contributionsFrank, M. R., Sun, L., Cebrian, M., Youn, H., & Rahwan, I. (2018). Small cities face greater impact from automation. Journal of the Royal Society Interface. 15(139).
[Selected Media: Wired, MIT Technology Review, New Scientist]