TMMM yet again ...

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images

What a surprise. AI may not lessen the workload. In some instances, it makes it worse.

Even if AI is — or eventually becomes — an incredible automation tool, will it make workers’ lives easier? That’s the big question explored in an ongoing study by researchers from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. And so far, it’s not looking good for the rank and file.

In a piece for Harvard Business Review, the research team’s Aruna Ranganathan and Xinqi Maggie Ye reported that after closely monitoring a tech company with two hundred employees for eight months, they found that AI actually intensified the work they had to do, instead of reducing it.

This “workload creep,” in which the employees took on more tasks than what was sustainable for them to keep doing, can create vicious cycle that leads to fatigue, burnout, and lower quality work.

Why is this? Think The Mythical Man Month as the plan often takes longer than implementation. Just integrating AI into the vagaries of a business, like any other process, without thinking it through, rarely works out as every business has a specific culture and workflow keyed to the specific business. Yours truly built systems and the most important part of the job was, prior to doing anything, is ... listen before doing anything. After that, do an initial system spec, show people the spec, get feedback on the spec, make appropriate changes on the spec based on feedback, get the required tech, do the pilot, get feedback on the pilot, modify what needs to be done, get final feedback on the changes and then, and only then, do rollout. If this is not done as per TMMM, what's described in the Futurism article becomes a given.

In closing ...

The tech company in the study provided AI tools to its workers, but didn’t mandate that they use them. Adoption was voluntary. The researchers described how many employees, on their own initiative, eagerly experimented with AI tools at first, “because AI made ‘doing more’ feel possible, accessible, and in many cases intrinsically rewarding.” This resulted in some workers increasingly absorbing tasks they’d normally outsource, the researchers said, or would’ve justified hiring additional help to cover.

In essence, there was no plan.

In addition to TMMM, OODA applies ... always.

Any questions?