Building and Governing AI Systems: Advancing Social Workers' Roles across the Technology Industry, Human Service Organizations, and Policy Institutions
This paper argues that social workers should expand their professional scope into technology decision-making roles across industry, human services, and policy by mapping their existing competencies and ethical frameworks to AI governance, with a specific focus on product management as a primary entry point.
Original paper dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Imagine the world of technology as a massive, bustling kitchen where robots are learning to cook. For a long time, social workers—professionals who help people navigate crises, find housing, and get mental health support—have been the ones serving the food to the hungry. But now, the robots are taking over the kitchen itself. They are deciding who gets a meal, how big the portion is, and even writing the recipes. This new field is called Artificial Intelligence (AI), and it's moving into the exact places social workers have always worked, like child welfare, crisis hotlines, and government benefits.
To understand what's happening, you need to know a few simple things. First, AI isn't just a smart calculator; it's a system that learns from data to make predictions or decisions, kind of like a student who reads a million history books and then tries to guess what happens next in a story. Second, these systems are built by teams of people, not just one genius in a lab. There are people who decide what to build, people who decide how it looks, and people who decide what rules it follows. Finally, there's a concept called "deployment." This is the moment a tool leaves the factory and starts being used in the real world. That's when the rubber meets the road, and when a bad decision can hurt a real person. The big question everyone is asking is: If these robots are making life-or-death decisions for vulnerable people, who is sitting at the table making sure the robots are being kind, fair, and helpful?
This paper argues that social workers should stop just watching the robots from the sidelines and actually sit at the table to help build them. The authors, a team of researchers from the University of Michigan, suggest that social workers are uniquely qualified to be the "chefs" of these AI systems, not just the servers. They point out that right now, social workers are often the ones using the tools or the ones whose clients are being judged by them, but they are rarely the ones deciding how the tools work. The paper introduces the idea of "Product Management" as the perfect job for social workers in the tech world. Think of a Product Manager as the captain of a ship who decides where the ship goes, what supplies it needs, and who gets on board. The authors show that the skills social workers learn in school—like listening to people, understanding their environment, and solving complex problems—are exactly the same skills needed to be a Product Manager for an AI system.
The paper doesn't just say "social workers should do this"; it maps out exactly how. It breaks down the tech team into different roles, like the engineers who build the engine, the designers who paint the ship, and the researchers who study the passengers. Then, it shows how a social worker's training matches up with the job of the Product Manager. For example, a social worker learns how to assess a family's needs; a Product Manager learns how to assess what users need from an app. They are the same skill, just used in a different room. The authors also warn that just knowing how to use AI isn't enough. Social workers need "production literacy," which means understanding how the AI was trained, what data it ate, and how to read the results so they don't get tricked by a vendor selling a snake-oil algorithm.
Crucially, the paper argues against the idea that social workers should only be the "ethics police" who show up after the system is built to say, "Wait, that's unfair." The authors say that if you aren't part of the decision-making process from the start, you can't really stop the harm. They also push back on the idea that social workers need to become computer programmers to be involved. You don't need to know how to code the engine to be the captain; you just need to know how to steer the ship and understand the map. The paper suggests that social workers can enter these roles through existing education pathways, like learning about how products are made and how to read contracts, without needing a second degree in engineering.
The authors are careful to say that this is a proposal and a roadmap, not a finished fact. They don't claim that social workers are already running the tech industry (they aren't), but they suggest that the skills are there and the need is urgent. They point out that while some tech companies have started hiring social workers for safety roles, it's still rare. The paper ends by calling for more research to see if social workers can actually succeed in these high-stakes jobs and if they can keep their ethical compass while working in a fast-paced tech environment. It's a call to action for the profession to stop letting the robots drive the bus and start grabbing the wheel.
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