Until recently, it tended to be the case that one informed the other. The more motivated I am in my work, the more I get done. Not so, now with AI, which can help us become FAR more productive, BUT at the cost of our overall motivation.
A study of over 3,500 people published this year found that those using AI tools performed better, but also became more bored and less intrinsically motivated when shifting to the work they had more control over.
As the researchers reflected in the Harvard Business Review: “If employees consistently rely on AI for creative or cognitively challenging tasks, they risk losing the very aspects of work that drive engagement, growth, and satisfaction.”
I don’t know about you, but I find this terrifying…
AI was supposed to do all the heavy lifting / menial processing drudgery, so that we could get to do all the fun stuff.
How can we find meaning in our work when we’re outsourcing skills like critical thinking, creativity and problem solving? Tools like ChatGPT are even better than us at demonstrating empathy, so we’re outsourcing that too to write our emails and performance reviews.
It might have taken me a little longer to write this post than if I’d used AI to write it for me. It would probably have been better written, more optimised for engagement.
But I enjoy writing and find it satisfying to process my thoughts in this way.
I refuse to hand over all the work I love to the robots. I’m reluctant to outsource my thinking and make my brain obsolete because a large language model does it better.
What do you think? Has using AI made your job less fun? Or have you found the right balance between productivity and motivating work?
(Please don’t get ChatGPT to respond: I’m not interested in the views of a chatbot on this one, and if I want to find out what AI thinks, I can ask it myself – in fact, I think I might!)
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash