Survey: People who use AI at work more likely to be lonely insomniacs

The study’s authors surveyed 166 Taiwanese engineers, 126 Indonesian property consultants, 294 Malaysian and Singapore tech workers and 214 US adults. - Photo: Reuters

SINGAPORE/WASHINGTON, June 13 (dpa): People who use artificial intelligence (AI) at work are more likely to be lonely and have trouble sleeping than others, according to a new survey of hundreds of workers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and the US.

"The rapid advancement in AI systems is sparking a new industrial revolution that is reshaping the workplace with many benefits but also some uncharted dangers, including potentially damaging mental and physical impacts for employees,” said Pok Man Tang, assistant professor of management at the University of Georgia.

Tang and colleagues carried out an experiment with 166 engineers at a Taiwanese biomedical company, who were surveyed over three weeks about "feelings of loneliness, attachment anxiety and sense of belonging."

"Employees who interacted more frequently with AI systems were more likely to experience loneliness, insomnia and increased after-work alcohol consumption, but also showed some helping behaviours toward fellow employees," they found.

A survey of 126 real estate consultants in an Indonesian property management company found much the same, minus the association between the frequency of AI use and after-work alcohol consumption, the researchers said.

An online experiment with 214 working adults in the US and another with 294 Malaysian tech company workers produced similar results, they added.

The one upside they found is that people who use AI a lot can prove more helpful to colleagues as their loneliness drives "an increased need for affiliation."

"Humans are social animals, and isolating work with AI systems may have damaging spillover effects into employees’ personal lives," said Tang, who with colleagues from National University of Singapore, Cardiff University, National Sun Yat-sen University, Texas A&M University and Nanyang Business School had the published in the Journal of Applied Psychology on June 12. - dpa