Employees Who Work With AI More Likely to Experience Loneliness, Drinking - Study

According to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Georgia, employees who work with artificial intelligence (AI) are more likely to experience insomnia, higher levels of loneliness, and are also more likely to binge drink.

New findings detailed that AI, which is typically used in marketing, finance and manufacturing, have the potential to wreak havoc on employees’ personal lives.

Researchers looked at employees in the US, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia, including 166 engineers at a Taiwanese biomedical company who were surveyed over three weeks about their feelings of loneliness, attachment anxiety and sense of belonging.

Officials found that those who work frequently with AI systems were more likely to drink alcohol after work, struggle to sleep, and experience feelings of loneliness. Findings also revealed that some employees were more likely to offer help to their coworkers, which may be caused by a need for social contact.

“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,” Dr. Pok Man Tang, a researcher at the University of Georgia, said in a statement.

“Humans are social animals, and isolating work with AI systems may have damaging spillover effects into employees’ personal lives,” added Tang, who first felt compelled to study the effects of AI after his experience of working at an investment bank.

The researchers found that working with AI could affect those prone to anxiety and insecurity about social relationships more deeply (whether positive or negative) than those working with AI who are not prone to attachment anxiety.

“Mindfulness programs and other positive interventions also might help relieve loneliness,” Tang continues. “AI will keep expanding so we need to act now to lessen the potentially damaging effects for people who work with these systems.”

Tang has suggested that tech companies could try giving AI systems more human-like voices, and try and incorporate more opportunities for employees to socialize outside of AI-based work tasks.

The findings were published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.