Make AI Enhance Your Productivity--Not A 'Surveillance State'

Remote work has surged over the past four months as a result of the national and state quarantines. Many organizations have articulated their concern for maintaining productivity amid all these disruptions, according to a recent survey from Enaible, leading to the introduction of AI-driven tools that monitor performance and promote teamwork. There is already plenty of evidence that technology is associated with gains in firm and organizational productivity. Researchers have also found that these gains require good management practices--simply adopting technology and letting it run does nothing. While the research on the productivity effects of AI in the workplace is only at its infancy, and applications of AI are so new, recent research of mine draws upon over a million individuals observed between 2008 and 2018 in Gallup's U.S. Daily Poll to study the relationship between well-being and technological change. We found that increases in technological change led to increases in the probability that an employee reports using their strengths at work, as well as increases in both current life satisfaction and optimism about future life satisfaction.