About the project
The AI-EMPOWERED research project aims to assess the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on the employment opportunities and work experiences of disabled people in the UK. The project has four research objectives, as follows:
(1) Assess digital skills, skill use and current skills gaps among disabled people.
(2) Explore perceptions and experiences of the opportunities, barriers and risks to employment created by emerging digital technologies, AI and automation among disabled people.
(3) Gather employer and stakeholder insights on the opportunities, barriers and risks created by emerging digital technologies, AI and automation for employment of disabled people.
(4) Evaluate the impacts of emerging digital technologies, AI and automation on current and future work opportunities, job quality and well-being for disabled people.
Background and importance
The reach of AI is likely to be extensive with the International Monetary Fund estimating that it will impact around 60% of jobs in economies such as the UK. These technologies will shift the skills demanded by employers, requiring (re)training and leading to a mix of job creation and displacement.
AI has the potential to increase productivity as routine tasks are automated. It holds an important potential to increase workplace accessibility through changing the nature of job tasks, increasing flexibility and supporting development of new assistive technologies, shown to offer significant benefits in supporting disabled people in(to) employment.
Developing understanding of the impacts of AI on the work opportunities and experiences of disabled people, as such, is highly important so that policy and practice can be positioned to support people through the current period of technology-driven economic and social change.
What does the project involve?
The research collects data via surveys and interviews with employers, disabled people (i.e., those who have an impairment, chronic health concern, learning difficulty, mental health difficulties or who are neurodivergent) and relevant stakeholders including representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and policymakers. There are three main components to the project and ways that you could participate as follows:
Stakeholder interviews: Capturing perspectives through interviews with academic experts, representatives from charities and non-government organizations, public policy makers and more, covering themes around the current and future impacts of digital technologies, AI and automation for the working lives of disabled people.
Employer perspectives: Gathering insights from employers via a survey and interviews to understand the impacts of digital technologies, AI and automation including for disabled employees at the organization level.
Employee perspectives: Capturing the voice of disabled people through survey and interview data collection on their experiences of their job, current level of use of digital technologies and AI in their job (even if they don’t use them currently), and perceptions around the impacts of digital technologies and AI in the future.