The real effects of artificial intelligence on employment are still difficult to assess, but that doesn’t stop some from speculating about the benefits that workers and managers will derive from the use of this new technology. However, according to a recent study, this progress may come at the expense of well-being at work.
This research was carried out by a think tank called the Institute for the Future of Work among 5,000 UK employees. Most of those surveyed regularly use information and communication technologies (ICT) at work, be they computers, smartphones, connected devices or artificial intelligence software.
These digital tools might be expected to make people’s day-to-day work easier, and to some extent they do. But while technology can make work easier, it can also intensify it. Such tools can therefore expose the managers and employees who use them intensively to psychological risks linked to stress, hyperconnectivity and excessive mental load.
But the authors of the Institute for the Future of Work study found that some ICTs contribute more to eroding employee well-being than others. Computers, smartphones and instant messaging at work, for example, are said to promote the well-being of employees who use them frequently.
Conversely, more recent technologies, such as connected devices, robotics and artificial intelligence software are said to worsen well-being. The more they are used, the more they undermine quality of life at work.
Although the researchers did not investigate the causes of this phenomenon, they note that their findings are in line with those of previous studies on the impact of ICT on quality of life at work. They explain that this latter research “connects such technologies to exacerbated feelings of disempowerment, increased sense of insecurity, task intensification and stress and loss of meaning, as well as anxiety and poorer overall health”. All these factors can have a detrimental effect on employee well-being.
Despite this, the authors of this research assert that ICTs are not a problem in themselves. “We don’t want to claim that there is some sort of determinism in what technology causes, in terms of well-being. We say it really depends on the context: on lots of structural factors, on environmental conditions, how it is designed and how it is deployed. So lots of human decisions,” the study’s lead author, Dr Magdalena Soffia, told The Guardian.
That’s why it’s vital for companies wishing to integrate artificial intelligence into their internal operations to be more transparent with their teams. They need to guide them and meet their training needs, so that they don’t feel threatened by the arrival of this new technology in their day-to-day work. – AFP Relaxnews