TY - GEN
T1 - What do Construction Workers Know about Artificial Intelligence? An Exploratory Case Study in an Austrian SME
AU - Maitz, Katharina
AU - Fessl, Angela
AU - Pammer-Schindler, Viktoria
AU - Kaiser, Rene
AU - Lindstaedt, Stefanie
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the DDAI COMET Module within the COMET — Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies Program, funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry (BMK and BMDW), the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), the province of Styria (SFG) and partners from industry and academia. The COMET Program is managed by FFG.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 ACM.
PY - 2022/9/4
Y1 - 2022/9/4
N2 - Artificial intelligence (AI) is by now used in many different work settings, including construction industry. As new technologies change business and work processes, one important aspect is to understand how potentially affected workers perceive and understand the existing and upcoming AI in their work environment. In this work, we present the results of an exploratory case study with 20 construction workers in a small Austrian company about their knowledge of and attitudes toward AI. Our results show that construction workers' understanding of AI as a concept is rather superficial, diffuse, and vague, often linked to physical and tangible entities such as robots, and often based on inappropriate sources of information which can lead to misconceptions about AI and AI anxiety. Learning opportunities for promoting (future) construction workers' AI literacy should be accessible and understandable for learners at various educational levels and encompass aspects such as i) conveying the basics of digitalization, automation, and AI to enable a clear distinction of these concepts, ii) building on the learners' actual experience realm, i.e., taking into account their focus on physical, tangible, and visible entities, and iii) reducing AI anxiety by elaborating on the limits of AI.
AB - Artificial intelligence (AI) is by now used in many different work settings, including construction industry. As new technologies change business and work processes, one important aspect is to understand how potentially affected workers perceive and understand the existing and upcoming AI in their work environment. In this work, we present the results of an exploratory case study with 20 construction workers in a small Austrian company about their knowledge of and attitudes toward AI. Our results show that construction workers' understanding of AI as a concept is rather superficial, diffuse, and vague, often linked to physical and tangible entities such as robots, and often based on inappropriate sources of information which can lead to misconceptions about AI and AI anxiety. Learning opportunities for promoting (future) construction workers' AI literacy should be accessible and understandable for learners at various educational levels and encompass aspects such as i) conveying the basics of digitalization, automation, and AI to enable a clear distinction of these concepts, ii) building on the learners' actual experience realm, i.e., taking into account their focus on physical, tangible, and visible entities, and iii) reducing AI anxiety by elaborating on the limits of AI.
KW - AI Anxiety
KW - AI Literacy
KW - Case Study
KW - Construction Industry
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85139133850&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3543758.3547545
DO - 10.1145/3543758.3547545
M3 - Conference paper
AN - SCOPUS:85139133850
T3 - ACM International Conference Proceeding Series
SP - 389
EP - 393
BT - Mensch und Computer 2022
A2 - Muhlhauser, Max
A2 - Reuter, Christian
A2 - Pfleging, Bastian
A2 - Kosch, Thomas
A2 - Matviienko, Andrii
A2 - Gerling, Kathrin
A2 - Mayer, Sven
A2 - Heuten, Wilko
A2 - Doring, Tanja
PB - Association of Computing Machinery
T2 - Mensch und Computer Conference 2022
Y2 - 4 September 2022 through 7 September 2022
ER -