How to Prepare for Rapidly Evolving Technology: Focus on Adaptability

Author(s):

Kimberly A Pollard, Benjamin T Files, Ashley H Oiknine, and Bianca Dalangin

Abstract:

Technology is advancing at a rapid and ever-accelerating pace, requiring human users to continually adapt to new interfaces, systems, and capabilities. Some emerging technologies such as advanced artificial intelligence (AI) can even update their capabilities and behaviors in real time, requiring human adaptation on the fly. How can we prepare users to adapt to these changes and, indeed, prepare them to work with future technologies that have not yet been invented or even imagined? The speed and unpredictability of technological evolution suggests a generalized approach is warranted. Training and selecting personnel for adaptability itself will yield more flexible, rapid, and robust results than relying solely on a reactive program of training on each specific technology as it comes out. In this report, we lay out the case for a focus on adaptability. We then outline a research approach that can 1) enable the identification and testing of fundamental skills and other characteristics associated with generalized tech adaptability, 2) allow personnel selection and team construction based on these characteristics, and 3) identify training and other interventions that can enhance these key generalizable characteristics. Effective use of these methods will result in users with enhanced ability to adapt to new, emerging, unknown, changing, and even not-yet-invented technologies.