Artificial intelligence (AI) offers significant potential to enhance industrial quality control, yet successful implementation requires careful consideration of ethical and human factors. This article examines how automated surface inspection systems can be deployed to augment human capabilities while ensuring ethical integration into workflows. Through design science research, twelve stakeholders from six organizations across three continents are interviewed and twelve sociotechnical design requirements are derived. These are organized into pre-implementation and implementation/operation phases, addressing human agency, employee participation, and responsible knowledge management. Key findings include the critical importance of meaningful employee participation during pre-implementation, and maintaining human agency through experiential learning, building on existing expertise. This research contributes to ethical AI workplace implementation by providing guidelines that preserve human ...
Industry 4.0 Science | Volume 42 | 2026 | Edition 1 | Pages 120-127 | DOI
10.30844/I4SE.26.1.112