Baobao Zhang
Syracuse University, NY·Social Science·Early-career
Generative AI, meaning software that can create text, images, audio and video, is starting to reach jobs that once seemed safe from automation, including jobs requiring years of education, extensive training and creativity. How are workers experiencing this shift?
- Fields
Social Science
Education Research
- Topics
generative AI
artificial intelligence
future of work
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2030
What they work on
- Measure how workers across different sectors, particularly knowledge workers, perceive generative AI's impacts on job quality, using a two-wave panel survey of 1,500 U.S. workers.
- Develop an in-depth account of workers' views of generative AI's risks and opportunities through semi-structured interviews and an online deliberative workshop with 40 workers drawn from the survey panel.
- Track how high school students navigate uncertainty about the future of work when choosing further schooling, training or a career, using a two-wave panel study.
More about the research
And how do young people choose a career while the future of work is so uncertain? This project examines how generative AI is reshaping the American workplace, with attention to worker productivity, job satisfaction and skill development. It also asks how people's views of these tools shape their behavior as both workers and citizens. The work draws on political economy and on science and technology studies.
Why it matters
The findings are meant to help business leaders and decision makers introduce AI tools in ways that support worker well-being, and to identify where AI adoption creates problems or opportunities. Results may guide workforce development programs, career counseling and educational initiatives; two pedagogy workshops bringing together career counselors, academics and business leaders will turn them into teaching resources.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
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Andrew Katz
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, VA·Education Research·Early-career
Extract the skills employers request from more than a decade of engineering job postings, using natural language processing (computer analysis of text) and a skill-extraction algorithm focused on mechanical engineering master's roles.
The school
Syracuse University: 13 labs on PI Pages, $199M a year on research, 168 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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