Continued public debate among tech leaders about the threats that rapidly developing yet unregulated artificial intelligence (AI) tools may create is likely distracting business owners from serious problems with the tech in their own workplaces. A series of surveys not only found large numbers of employees using task-automating apps recklessly, but are often doing so in the absence of company guidelines enforcing accurate, responsible deployment.
Three recent studies identified the entangled challenges that a growing group of employees and their companies face during this initial phase of AI adoption. The first was published by cloud communications firm GoTo, whose survey of 2,500 global workers and IT leaders found that 83% of respondents worry they’ll probably be blamed – perhaps even fired – for mistakes in work materials made by an app. That fear was the reason nearly a third of those participants said they’ve hesitated to use the tech in favour of the less risky option of doing the work themselves.
Given that, why would timorous staffers use bots at all?
One reason was revealed in a recent Gallup poll that showed 27% of “US workers fear technology could make their jobs obsolete.” That concern has risen swiftly since 2021, and “is now the top job worry among workers under 45,” the company said. It’s also leading many of those fretting individuals to embrace AI tools as a way of increasing their productivity, and thereby protect their employment.
Pressure to use AI is creating more workflow mistakes
The GoTo survey quantified that reaction, and said it was in some ways being driven by employers urging staff to use AI more.
“Job performance concerns and pressure to use AI are driving misuse of these tools,” a report on the results said. “(60%) of employees say they feel pressured to use AI to increase their productivity. Nearly half (47%) say AI use is considered during their performance reviews, and 42% say they’d rather risk making errors with AI than look ‘slow’ or ‘replaceable.’”
At times that insistence to use the tech – and errors that result – comes directly from supervisors. Nearly a third of poll respondents said “there’s unspoken pressure at work to trust AI and keep quiet about its mistakes.” That gag order was slapped on 14% of employees who said they’d been told to clam up about warnings made to managers about flawed app output.
Not surprisingly, one troubling upshot is that workers who feel forced to use apps they’re leery of are losing their usual sense of job responsibility about the outcomes.
For example, 55% of GoTo respondents admitted they don’t always review or double-check AI outputs – even for high-stakes tasks. Worse still, 26% of participants said using the tech “lets them avoid any real accountability at work,” which led 25% to report they’d blamed apps for errors employees made themselves.
Think that’s bad? It gets worse.
A September poll by California litigation firm Kolmogorov Law, PC, of 50 employees who use AI found 42% had knowingly passed along app content they knew or suspected was wrong into the wider business workflow. Around 30% of those workers said they’d landed in hot water after doing so.
Yet despite that, 65% of all poll participants reported they still don’t bother to verify bot outputs for accuracy.
Most companies still have no formal guidelines for AI use
What could all that flippant behaviour be built on? Employers’ own approach to AI deployment.
Kolmogorov’s study found only 22% of respondents reported their company “has a written policy requiring AI output to be verified before it goes into work product,” with 59% affirming their employers have no formal requirement. The GoTo survey found just 24% of small businesses and 36% of midsize enterprises said they’ve established AI guidelines. That figure rises to 53% of larger firms.
The trouble is, while that absence of workplace rules regulating app use may provide excuses for staff AI-related errors to get through, it does nothing to resolve the troubles they create later.
“Workers have figured out something most of their employers have not written down yet,” said Kolmogorov Law founder Pavel Kolmogorov in a report on the results. “They are still not checking. When that (errant) answer ends up in a contract, a filing, or a client deliverable, ‘the AI said so’ is not a defence… The AI companies have disclaimed accuracy in their terms of service, so there is no one upstream to sue. That leaves the professional and the business, which is exactly where the duty of care has always been. The tool changed. The rule did not.”
The only solution to that threat from loosey-goosey AI use is clear from survey results. Both studies concluded that the only way employers can get both the increased worker productivity they seek from workers using the tech, and accurate app outputs, is to create clear and effective guidelines for usage.
In the meantime, workplace pressures on members to increase AI use should be kept to a minimum, while positive methods to encourage that should factor in extra time staff will need to fully and systematically vet outputs.
“We’re seeing a new kind of workplace pressure: Employees feel they must use AI to avoid looking replaceable, but fear repercussions if it goes wrong,” said Dan Schawbel, managing partner of the Workplace Intelligence company that conducted the GoTo survey. “That combination is exactly how you get a workforce that uses AI recklessly. Many organisations are accelerating AI adoption without providing the training, policies, and support employees need to use these tools effectively. The companies that close this gap will be best positioned to unlock AI’s full capabilities while building a more productive and confident workforce.” – Inc./Tribune News Service
