Trojan Horse: A Caution for Leaders about AI
It's the shiny new toy, but if we're not careful, it will get out of control. Just look to history for proof
Every couple decades, a new technology rushes onto the scene claiming it will revolutionize the way you work “for the better”: increasing your productivity, saving you time and giving you more freedom. From the Xerox copier in the 60’s, to email in the 90’s, to Slack in the 2010’s.
Today, that new technology is undoubtedly artificial intelligence. And lately, as I hear almost daily about new AI tools popping up and how AI will transform every facet of life, the metric of “hours we spend working” has been on my mind.
In 1930, British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by 2030, people would work a 15-hour week. He argued that the advancements in machinery and other technological innovations would automate enough of our work and increase efficiency so much that people would work much less.
We’ll give him partial credit. Advanced technology has damn sure increased our collective productivity compared to 1930. But that 15-hour work week? Swing and a miss. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans are still hovering around 40 hours worked per week on average. And we’re also more burned out at work than ever.
Will AI be the balm that heals our burnout? The tech companies pushing it sure believe it’s part of the formula. But here’s something to consider: With each revolutionary piece of technology, for every productivity benefit there’s a more sinister human cost. The examples I mentioned earlier (Xerox copier, email, Slack) have something else in common: Each claimed to be the cure for the information overload people felt at work— yet each only compounded the problem.
If we’re not careful in considering the full potential impact of AI in our workplaces, including the unwritten and unspoken norms it could create in an organization’s culture, the advantages that AI brings will get nullified by the consequences of its unfettered spread.
History is Not on Our Side
One of the main benefits we hear about AI in the workplace is that it’ll save us time at our jobs. Sure, yes, I agree. But my question is…time for what? With AI potentially saving us hours every day, will we work less in the future? Or will we try to squeeze even more productivity and output from people, exacerbating already record burnout?
There’s a concept called “Parkinson’s law”, which argues that work will expand to fill the time we give it. Meaning if, in the future, organizations continue to expect their employees to work a 9-5, 40-hour week schedule, the time saved by AI will need to be made up somewhere. And, if leaders are not intentional about the norms created by an AI-infused workplace, that time could easily be allocated to more projects, more assignments and more pressure to produce, maximizing organizational benefit at the expense of employee well-being.
We can look to recent history for evidence of technological advancements that, yes saved time, but also created unforeseen workplace problems — burdens that were largely shouldered by individuals due to a lack of systemic guardrails.
Email - The rise of email made our co-workers much more accessible and quicker to reach than before (when you’d have to walk over to someone’s desk and leave a note that could get lost, or work with their assistant to deliver a message if they weren’t by their desk phone). However, email also gave people the task of managing exploding inboxes on top of the work they actually specialized in that required deep focus. It forced people to fragment their mental energy and time, constantly jumping between doing work and talking about doing work
Smartphones - With smartphones, we could Get Shit Done on the go. No need to lug around a clunky computer or be confined to your office network in order to access your email or chat with your teammates. Great, right? Except smartphones also served as the catalyst for today’s always-on culture. No longer was the work day bound by the clear markers of a physical office, and the suddenly-frictionless ability to contact someone at any time created unhealthy expectations of responsiveness outside regular work hours
I don’t think anyone intended for email or smartphones to corrode workplace well-being like they did. But the consequences could’ve been mitigated had we implemented boundaries to each new technology in parallel with implementing the technology itself, had we considered the misuse case for every use case.
The Human Implications
Today, leaders face a very similar situation with implementing AI in the workplace. Here’s my warning to CEOs, CIOs, CHROs and any leader who recognizes their role in designing healthy workplaces: Do not let the shininess of AI blind you to its potential risks for people. Carefully consider what your workplace expectations and norms could look like 1, 5 and 10 years after introducing AI tools.
How will the time savings provided by AI impact someone’s work capacity? If AI saves 30% of my time, does that mean I will be expected to take on 30% more work?
Will you disclose AI-augmented creations and decisions to customers, employees and other stakeholders? If so, how?
Will everyone be expected to be a “Swiss army knife” no matter their core specialized discipline? After all, if everyone has the prompts to be a writer, a designer, a data modeler and a strategist, then it’s very easy to overload one person, to take them away from their primary responsibilities, instead of utilizing multiple people who are specialists and experts in those crafts
In a world where technology advances at a pace faster than many people can keep up, how will you ensure people are given opportunity and space to adapt with dignity and without fear of losing their livelihood?
There’s a quote I love from author and tech anthropologist Neil Postman that says, “Technology is not additive, it’s ecological.” Throughout history, every widespread technological advancement has disrupted the way people think, behave and connect with others. When the printing press was introduced, we weren’t the same old humans but just now with the added ability to print things. Instead, it created a massive spread of knowledge, news and ideas around the world and completely shifted the trajectory of humanity. Similar arguments can be made for cars, the Internet and smartphones.
“Technology is not additive, it’s ecological.”
AI is being positioned as that next big technological breakthrough that will fundamentally alter the human experience. And work, for better or for worse, is a big part of the experience. Which underscores why organizational leaders and lawmakers must scrutinize and set up guardrails for AI instead of being overtaken by its shininess. The stakes are too high.
If we all agree that AI is going to transform our lives and work, then we need to adapt our environments for the full scope of that transformation.