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Concerns about the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace are increasing with a second major research study showing it is draining people rather than offering relief.
Researchers at the University of California in an eight-month study of employees at a U.S.-based technology company found AI seriously intensified work. Now a Boston Consulting Group team, after a study of nearly 1,500 full-time U.S.-based workers at large companies across industries, roles and levels is warning that AI usage is causing “brain fry.”
That’s a catchy descriptor for cognitive exhaustion from excessive use or oversight of AI tools beyond one’s cognitive capacity. It can involve a “buzzing” feeling or a mental fog involving difficulty focusing, slower decision-making and headaches. “This AI-associated mental strain carries significant costs in the form of increased employee errors, decision fatigue and intention to quit,” the researchers – Julie Bedard, Matthew Kropp, Megan Hsu, Olivia Karaman, Jason Hawes and Gabriella Rosen Kellerman – write in Harvard Business Review.
Their key findings:
- The most mentally taxing form of AI engagement was oversight – the extent to which AI tools required the person’s direct monitoring. Those who reported their AI duties required high rather than low degrees of oversight expended an estimated 14 per cent more mental effort on the job. More intensive AI oversight also led to 19 per cent greater information overload.
- The extent to which AI increased an individual’s workload also, as might be expected, led to cognitive overload and mental fatigue. “These two factors together – AI oversight and an increase in workload – increase an employee’s sphere of accountability, requiring them to pay attention to more outcomes for more tools in the same amount of time. It makes sense that cognitive load increased, and with it, their mental exhaustion,” the researchers state.
- An intriguing relationship emerged between the number of AI tools used simultaneously and perceived productivity increases. When employees go from using one AI tool to two simultaneously, they experience a significant increase in productivity. Adding another, third tool, still increases productivity, but at a lower rate. That’s it, however. Any more, and productivity dips, multitasking taking its toll.
- While AI use often led to mental fatigue, it didn’t increase burnout. In fact, use of AI to replace repetitive tasks was associated with a decrease in burnout, which is measured by physical and emotional, rather than mental, dimensions of distress.
When asked about symptoms of brain fry, answers varied widely according to respondents’ roles. At the low end, just 6 per cent of people in legal roles reported experiencing it; at the high end, 26 per cent of those in marketing sensed it. After marketing, people operations, operations, engineering, finance and IT were the functions with the highest incidence of AI brain fry.
Longtime product manager Warren Smith sees the intensification of work from AI in his field. AI has rapidly compressed several phases of the product development cycle such as summarizing large datasets and rapid prototyping. “The result is an environment where product teams can run more experiments, generate more ideas and test more hypotheses than ever before. At first glance, this appears to be just a productivity gain. But that speed changes the behavioural dynamics of work,” he writes on his blog.
AI can lower the barrier to starting a task, and work becomes what he calls “ambient,” a constant stream of small opportunities to advance something slightly further. “The experience might feel productive. But it also removes the natural human recovery points that once helped regulate the pace of knowledge work,” he notes.
Another subtle shift is how information flows through teams. AI is excellent at synthesizing large volumes of information into a single answer or recommendation. But he points out that creative and strategic thinking often depends on exposure to multiple perspectives. AI is therefore reducing the intellectual friction that often leads to better ideas and in the frenzy judgment can be degraded.
AI is changing the way you and your colleagues work. You need to guard against the less healthy aspects.
Quick hits
- The hard things paradox, according to venture capitalist Sahil Bloom, is that doing hard things makes life easier. The persuasion paradox is that the most argumentative people rarely persuade anyone of anything.
- Inclusive workplaces advocate Karen Catlin warns not to laugh at disparagement humour – jokes that make another group the punchline – a trap that the U.S. men’s hockey team fell into when President Donald Trump got them laughing about inviting the women’s hockey team as well to the White House. In her newsletter, Ms. Catlin warns that disparagement humour doesn’t just reflect discrimination; it normalizes it.
- Technology executive Deb Liu says you should give more credit than necessary to others: “Influence grows when ego shrinks.”
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.