How using AI at work can hurt your career, according to experts
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Using artificial intelligence can make humans “boring” According to Sandra Matz, a professor at Columbia Business School. Her research on the subject points to two direct consequences for workers: stagnation and mediocrity.
“When employees use this to outsource critical thinking or creative reasoning, there is a risk that they will slowly fall behind and become complacent,” Matz said.
One reason is that many AI tools produce the clearest and safest answers, he said: “In short, we become just like everyone else.”
Already 43% St. According to a study published in March by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, more than half of U.S. workers report using AI for their jobs.
But Fred Oswald, an industrial organizational psychologist and a former member of the National Advisory Committee on Artificial Intelligence, said many professionals may have trouble distinguishing between beneficial and harmful ways to use technology.
“There is a Wild West use of artificial intelligence worth understanding and exploring so that employees and organizations can manage risks and deliver greater benefits,” Oswald said.
Artificial intelligence ‘should not replace judgment’
Matz said using AI can be “great” for boosting your productivity by automating and speeding up mundane work tasks. You can also use technology as a “sparring partner for brainstorming,” he said.
But you don’t want AI to replace your own thinking, problem-solving and creativity, he added.
“Once all employees start consulting AI as they develop their ideas, independent thinking begins to give way to algorithmic consensus,” Matz said.
Americus Reed II, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business, said his colleagues describe outsourcing critical thinking to AI as “cognitive surrender.”
Instead, AI is best used to summarize information, analyze data and organize ideas, Reed said.
“This should not replace litigation, it should remove friction,” he said. “The goal is to spend less time processing information and more time creating meaning.”
There’s a Wild West use of artificial intelligence.
Fred Oswald
industrial organizational psychologist
Dorothy Leidner, professor of business and ethics at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Business, said those early in their careers need to be especially careful that AI doesn’t get in the way of their learning.
“The risk is higher for younger workers who don’t have the depth of expertise that would help them use AI as a thought enhancer rather than as a thought generator,” Leidner said.
Using AI with colleagues could ‘erode trust’
Using AI to craft emails or Slack messages to co-workers, employees or managers will “slowly erode trust,” Matz said.
AI can summarize a meeting or produce a progress report, but informal workplace interactions should be organic and spontaneous, he said.
“The moment we suspect a message has been outsourced to AI, we may begin to question whether our colleagues care enough to write to us,” he said.
It should not replace the judiciary but eliminate friction.
America Reed II
professor of marketing at Wharton School of Business
He said it’s flaws in communication, sloppiness, and even tension that lead to the strongest connections.
“Preserving these human signals in our interactions will be a big challenge for organizations adopting AI,” Matz said.
Leidner said he also recommends not relying too much on “digital twins,” or your virtual clone, when talking to people you know.
“If we get to the point where the AI is creating the emails and the AI is responding to the emails, then no real communication is happening,” Leidner said.
Find your meaning where AI falls short
Eva Selenko, a professor of work psychology at Loughborough University in England, said she was most concerned about people using AI for tasks that “underpin one’s understanding of oneself as a professional.”
“Witnessing a tool outperform you on a task central to your expertise can be a status threat,” Selenko said. “If those opportunities are taken away from you, your self-concept becomes a little more shaky.”
But Reed said experiences like this may be inevitable as technology improves.
“When AI performs tasks that you’ve long thought of as ‘your job,’ you wonder, ‘What value am I still bringing?'” Reed said. “It is natural to ask,” he said.
The answer isn’t to stop using tools, Reed said, but to find your meaning “around qualities that AI can’t replicate.”
“Workers must remember that adopting AI is not the same as outsourcing your identity,” he said. “Technology is changing rapidly, but uniquely human skills – judgment, creativity, curiosity and relationships – are becoming even more valuable.”
