AI @ Work: Human Empowerment or Disempowerment?

Recent advancements in generative AI systems fuel expectations that AI will free workers to resolve creative, complex, and rewarding tasks by automating routine and repetitive work. Furthermore, algorithmic decision systems (ADS) will improve decision quality by providing real-time information and insights, analyzing vast amounts of data, and generating recommendations to support decision-making. In this narrative, AI empowers workers to achievements that they could not reach without the technology. However, using AI in work contexts may also lead to changes in workers’ roles and identities, leading to feelings of reduced self-efficacy and lower confidence in their abilities and a sense of diminished value in the workplace, their ethical decision-making abilities, and professional integrity. Initial empirical findings on the impact of AI in the work context point to essential design aspects that will determine which of the narratives becomes a reality. This chapter presents these initial findings and makes design suggestions.