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Introduction: Biomedical engineers have created devices and technologies that have greatly improved human health and well being. Our next generation of biomedical engineers will inherit this legacy and will likely develop devices and technologies with capabilities that we can scarcely imagine now. Currently, many promising designs never make it out of the lab or the classroom. The aim of the MINDS Scholars program is to teach biomedical engineering students how to integrate key considerations for translation/commercialization into the design process, so that the time and money invested in these designs will result in more devices and technologies that reach the patient.
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Metahuman systems = humans + machines that learn
Metahuman systems are new, emergent, sociotechnical systems where machines that learn join human learning and create original systemic capabilities. Metahuman systems will change many facets of the way we think about organizations and work. They will push information systems research in new directions that may involve a revision of the field’s research goals, methods and theorizing. Information systems researchers can look beyond the capabilities and constraints of human learning toward hybrid human/machine learning systems that exhibit major differences in scale, scope and speed. We review how these changes influence organization design and goals. We identify four organizational level generic functions critical to organize metahuman systems properly: delegating, monitoring, cultivating, and reflecting. We show how each function raises new research questions for the field. We conclude by noting that improved understanding of metahuman systems will primarily come from learning-by-doing as information systems scholars try out new forms of hybrid learning in multiple settings to generate novel, generalizable, impactful designs. Such trials will result in improved understanding of metahuman systems. This need for large-scale experimentation will push many scholars out from their comfort zone, because it calls for the revitalization of action research programs that informed the first wave of socio-technical research at the dawn of automating work systems.
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- PAR ID:
- 10171168
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Information Technology
- ISSN:
- 0268-3962
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 026839622091591
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0268396220915917
