Читать книгу Digital Transformations in the Challenge of Activity and Work - Группа авторов - Страница 21

Emerging technologies, by promising new and almost infinite computational capacities, reasoning possibilities and modes of action, induce an all-powerful imagination: they are then perceived or presented as omnipotent, because they are omniscient (reasoning power of AI) and omnipresent (supervision of activities by smart data and connected objects). They formulate an almost superhuman injunction to be able to control them. And the individual, a mere mortal, can only be, at best, the discreet substitute or the passive auxiliary of these systems, and at worst, they’ll be totally eradicated from the socio-technical equation that is unfolding.

What is also particular with these emerging technologies is to consider the omnipotence of these tools as determining and structuring the organization’s project: factory/hospital of the future, collaborative work platform, smart home, teleworking, collective intelligence, organizational agility, work tuberization, etc. We are in what could be called a “technological absolutism” or an essentialist vision of technology: first and foremost, one considers what it “is” and “must do”, instead of what it is capable of “doing” or “undoing”, “bringing or removing”, that is, its value, the meaning it takes on in the activity. It is the only one that holds the truth, the knowledge, the expertise about the work. Seen as performative systems, these tools are the Alpha and Omega of organizational efficiency and individual and collective innovation.

However, despite the innovations and sophistication that characterize these technologies, it should be remembered that the vast majority of these devices remain disconnected from the socio-professional realities that employees experience. They are more oriented towards the search for technological performance, profitability and socio-economic efficiency, which disqualify from the outset any subjective commitment and deny any human initiative that could be detrimental to the organizational project. For companies, these human practices thwart their action plans and/or threaten the quality standards promoted by technological environments. In this system of activity-mediated human–machine, it is the individual who is the variable of adjustment and it is up to him/her to find an acceptable compromise of functioning, with the rules of action imposed by the device. Moreover, as we have also seen, the deployment of such environments is also accompanied by tensions and contradictions in the very way of living and acting with these tools, of building our practice and developing our profession.

Ultimately, in this human–machine collaboration to be constructed, it is a question of moving from “incantatory technologies”, which aim to provoke quasi-automatic, even magical effects, by their mere presence; to “embodied” technologies which have meaning for employees and which give meaning to the activity that is being done. They aim not only to satisfy the needs of professionals, but also to support their initiatives, sustain their activity and encourage the development of their skills and autonomy. It is under these conditions that these technologies will become acceptable (Bobillier Chaumon 2016, and see Chapter 18 in this work) by being instruments at the service of professions and acting as occupational health operators.