8. Regional Innovation Factors and the Future of Work

The start of the third decade of twenty-first century changed much of the dynamics both in the regional landscape of the innovations and for the work processes following them. The online platforms through which a lot of employments started to be generated crossed with the first applications of the artificial intelligence (AI). Thus the influx of models and processes related to the Future of Work expected at a predictable pace accelerated much more due to the initial pandemic crisis in the 2020 and the expected at the late 2021 emerging recession with further serious challenges for governments and economic operators to come. In this chapter, both the outlines of the regional levels of innovation and types/sectors of technological changes and the elements of the future of work, which occur as a follow-up will be identified. For the purpose, already a field research was performed in the frames of a project financed under the Bulgarian National Scientific Fund, and a lot of assumptions were discussed in the frames of an initiative on the multidisciplinary innovation. The objectives of this chapter are set out towards outlining the effects both of the innovative actions as a whole, and of some focused achievements for the AI applications over the processes by which the Future of Work vocations will be fulfilled. The understanding in the chapter is that the processes will be further accelerated not in the range of decades, but in less than several years. In the concept of the chapter is that the results of the acceleration of the Future of Work processes the working relations are and will be significantly demassified, and many industries, as well as the balance between them, will change. Those industries in the entertainment sector especially will be increasingly inferior, and the health and social care activities and sub-sectors may attract more work force on the other extreme. At the same time, the collection, management and use of process automation data as well as the mechanization of multiple productions and services will attract significant investment and replace human labour more and more.