Human rights, employee rights and copyrights – Parallels of aI enablers and obstacles across occupations in human-centric domains

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been widely assumed to transform industries and occupations in them in the decade to come. Scholarly literature has addressed the phenomenon by studies of computerization across an array of jobs (Frey and Osborne, 2013) as well depictions of the the way AI does the transformation (e.g. Bessen, 2018). There are also studiest on specific occupational contexts such as managerial work and medical profession. This paper recapitulates the findings of three separate futures studies that addressed the potentials of AI-driven change in three distinct areas, which all have traditionally contained a strong human-based element. The primary data for the study was collected via qualitative interview on experts of both application areas as well as AI technology development. The data analyses relied on content analysis via thematic coding and presented using scenarios. The professional areas studied were primary medical care (human rights and human touch), recruitment function within HRM (human resources) and music composing (human creativity). The results of the study offers view on parallels and discrepancies in the AI-supported future between occupations, factors that may spark or slow down the AI-intrusion to the fields in focus. The results are illustrated to depict the joint potential opportunities as well as challenges in AI use and also the industry-specific benefits and challenges not shared with other domains of activity. The indication is that despite the common basic tenets of the technology, the goals and potential benefits differ in occupational contexts. The research also signals worries on legal and ethical dimensions i.e. rights and responsibilities in AI interventions to work processes across occupational areas. The research contributes to research streams of process management, technology acceptance and ethics. The research gives also gives pragmatic guidance to AI technology and solutions developers as well as to the organizations and professionals deploying AI-based technologies