AI automation paradox: Workers face more complex responsibilities for lower pay, study warns

AI automation paradox: More work, not less

Workers face new mental health pressures as they shift from doing tasks to babysitting agentic AI A report on occupational health warns that AI adoption may paradoxically increase workplace burdens rather than reduce them. As AI automates routine tasks, workers will shoulder new responsibilities: overseeing AI systems, catching their errors, and managing the resulting complexity - potentially triggering mental health pressures. Researchers from Imperial College London and Microsoft argue the real impact won't be mass job replacement, but a fundamental shift in work demands. Human roles will evolve from performing tasks to stewarding AI agents across workflows, including briefing them, reviewing outputs, and correcting errors. "As AI absorbs routine tasks, human roles may shift toward stewardship, problem-solving, or emotional labor, all with their own psychological demands," said Dr Lara Shemtob, who led the research published in the Society of Occupational Medicine's (SOM) journal Occupational Medicine. This effectively transforms workers into managers of AI systems - a role not everyone is suited for. The report warns AI may "paradoxically increase the knowledge worker's burden of handling complex tasks while simultaneously exerting downward pressure on compensation." This means more responsibility and less pay, because AI supposedly makes work "easier." All of this could introduce novel occupational hazards, some familiar in form but different in scale and complexity, raising stress levels. Evidence already supports this concern. A 2024 study found AI coding tools actually slowed developers down due to time spent checking and correcting AI-generated errors. As AI systems become more autonomous, problems like "hallucinations" (false or inaccurate outputs) may escalate and become harder to detect. Until now, much of the debate over AI has centred on the extent to which it will (or maybe won't) replace people's jobs. The report urges quantifying AI supervision demands and building them into job descriptions to avoid hidden workloads that negate automation benefits. Researchers don't yet know the exact impact on human employees from having to work more closely with AI, the report concludes, but they say occupational health should be part of the dialog and analysis of how AI changes expectations of workers. Whether this scenario materializes remains uncertain. Recent reports show companies have invested tens of billions in generative AI with little return, and many projects fail due to underestimated deployment complexity. The question isn't just how AI will change work, it's whether widespread adoption will happen at all. ®

New report on AI adoption warns workers could face more complex responsibilities for lower pay

Long-term sustainability is key to negating many of our fears A new Occupational Medicine journal article has uncovered the potential impacts that AI could have on work, and it could mean that we'll face higher workloads without seeing a correlative pay rise. By automating routine and administrative tasks, AI has now presented human workers with a new challenge - managing it. The researchers worry this could be adding to stress and pressure, particularly without the correct training. All of this comes as AI promises to deliver huge productivity boosts, but the reality is that the tech has threatened to create major industrial shifts and even displace (or redefine) entry-level workers. The report warns that AI can increase workers' responsibilities despite claiming to make work easier, therefore salaries aren't rising. For example, a separate 2024 report citing in the article shows how AI tools can slow work down, causing employees to check and correct AI errors that wouldn't have been there otherwise. The researchers describe these as "hidden workloads that negate the benefit of automating outsourcing tasks." Looking ahead, the research calls for more thought to be given to where humans sit "in the [AI] loop." Poor management may also lead to productivity gaps as well as health and unemployment consequences across industries, age groups, and regions. A previous MIT study found that around one in nine US jobs could be replaced by artificial intelligence. Separate Bank of England and ONS data shows youth unemployment rising across the UK. With AI transforming historically slow-to-evolve industries more quickly, the report underscores the urgency in "finding routes to sharing learning." While many fear that AI could replace jobs, this report concludes that greater care should be given to how we handle this transitionary period to ensure that humans continue to play a sustainable role in productivity.