The prowess of artificial intelligence software is attracting the interest of bosses and managers, who see it as an opportunity to boost their staff’s productivity. But a new study warns of the psychological cost of these new technologies.
An international team of researchers recently conducted four experiments involving 794 employees in Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the United States, working in a variety of industries.
Some participants work as engineers in a Taiwanese biomedical company, while others are employed by an Indonesian property management company that uses AI software to value properties or manage customer portfolios.
The scientists asked the workers to rate their levels of loneliness and anxiety, as well as their sense of belonging to the company since using AI in their work tasks. They were also asked about the quality of their sleep and the amount of alcohol they drink once their working day is over.
The aim was to determine whether the introduction of this new technology into their workplace is affecting their personal wellbeing and quality of life.
Everything suggests that AI isolates employees more than it helps them to develop professionally. Indeed, the use of such software contributes to the individualisation of tasks and, by extension, to a breakdown in the collective dimension of work.
In the interest of efficiency, employees rely on the machine to carry out their tasks, rather than turning to their office colleagues. In this context, it’s difficult to maintain links with others, which explains why the participants said they felt lonelier since they started using AI in their professional lives.
Solitude vs productivity
This feeling of isolation can be a source of great unease for some employees, as highlighted by this research, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. As a result, they sleep less well and are more likely to drink alcohol after work.
“Humans are social animals, and isolating work with AI systems may have damaging spillover effects into employees’ personal lives,” says Pok Man Tang, lead author and an assistant professor of management at the University of Georgia.
However, he and his colleagues note that the conclusions of their research are subject to qualification due to several methodological biases. Be that as it may, this scientific paper bears witness to the major questions being raised by advances in AI.
Some observers are worried about the impact it will have on all human activities in the years to come, especially since Goldman Sachs estimates that this technology could improve global GDP by 7% over the next few years by boosting productivity.
Scientists from Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have measured the effective impact of using AI in business in a research paper, published in April by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
They found that it boosted average productivity by 14% in a company with 5,000 employees, providing customer support services mainly in the Philippines.
Surprisingly, this boost particularly benefited the least qualified and most novice workers – all the more reason to temper alarmist rhetoric about the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace.