Embedding AI into daily tasks can heighten stress and confuse people about their role

While artificial intelligence is taking on work across the economy, it may also create new demands on the human workforce that employers must stay ahead of and respond to. Researchers from Microsoft and Imperial College London highlight in the Society of Occupational Medicine’s (SOM) journal Occupational Medicine  that AI tools will bring a multitude of benefits to the workplace. The technology is likely to make accessing workplace health support much easier for employees and managers, for example by automating and simplifying booking processes and appointments.

Clinicians, too, will increasingly use AI tools to manage, track and analyse workplace health and workplace health data in their organisations.  However, as this technology becomes ever more deeply embedded within workplaces it will simultaneously create its own, new, health issues and challenges. Until now, much of the conversation around AI has been about the extent to which it will replace people’s jobs. Researchers writing in Occupational Medicine believe that, for many, it will become a technology that simply exists alongside their role.

This will, however, profoundly change how many jobs work, and the likely demands on workers as a result. While the ‘drudge’ of many day-to-day roles will be taken away by AI, human roles will become more focused on handling and managing complexity.

“As AI absorbs routine tasks, human roles may shift toward stewardship, problem-solving, or emotional labour, all with their own psychological demands,” the research team, led by Imperial clinical research fellow Dr. Lara Shemtob, said. “Individuals who currently operate independently may be expected to manage a number of AI agents and move through iterations of management practices as organisations and the technology they deploy evolve with time. It is essential that the demand of supervising AI is quantified, acknowledged and built into roles as they evolve, to avoid hidden workloads that negate the benefit of automating outsourcing tasks,” Shemtob added.

There will also be challenges around AI ‘hallucination’, where AI generates results that are inaccurate or misleading. This may “escalate and become harder for human supervisors to detect as the technology becomes more autonomous,” putting extra stress and burdens on those humans working alongside AI tools. As the sophistication of AI accelerates, and the tasks it can be given (or taken away from human co-workers) increases, we will see growing “role ambiguity” within workplaces, again potentially creating uncertainty, stress and anxiety.

“AI will alter the roles, risks and responsibilities of the human workforce across all the sectors that OH supports. Understanding and managing the interface between humans and AI is therefore the next critical frontier for occupational health, and one upon which we must bring our expertise to bear,” Shemtob and her team concluded.

SOM president Professor Neil Greenberg said: “AI, we all know, is here to stay and is likely to become an ever-more important part of all our working lives. The benefit it can bring in terms of improving automation and processes – simplifying and streamlining the way we access healthcare support at work – has the potential to be immensely positive. Yet, as this work illustrates, embedding AI in workplaces may yet come with downsides, especially to workers’ mental health. The way AI will change how human co-workers interact and spend their days, how it will change expectations, workloads and demands – and simply the uncertainty and precariousness it brings to many roles – may create a whole raft of new challenges for occupational health professionals. It is a workplace transformation organisations need to be preparing for right now.”