Does AI make us dumber? No, say IDA members. Yes, says researcher

A new study shows that IDA members have largely embraced artificial intelligence as a tool or sparring partner in their working lives. 74 per cent of members use AI at work and 13 per cent would like to start using it. Of those who use AI, 47 per cent use it daily or almost daily.

So in that sense, members know what they are talking about when they answer questions about the impact of AI on their professional skills and job satisfaction. Or do they? That's what Nanna Inie, PhD and assistant professor at the IT University, who researches the interaction between machines and humans, will discuss in this article.

AI strengthens IDA members' working lives

More than half of the members (52 per cent) feel that the use of AI has strengthened their job satisfaction to some or a high degree. But creativity, professional skills and the ability to think critically or come up with new ideas are also strengthened rather than weakened.

Nanna Inie is not surprised by IDA members' positive experience: ‘Firstly, it is those who actually use AI who have answered the question about weakening or strengthening, and secondly, IDA members are technical professionals with digital skills that give them an insight into how a process can be automated by machines.’

What does surprise Nanna Inie, however, is that 67 per cent of IDA members believe that AI contributes to a general improvement in the quality of their work. Other studies have found evidence to the contrary.

For example, a recent article in Harvard Business Review refers to a report from MIT Media Lab showing that 95 per cent of companies do not see a measurable return on their investment in AI technology because AI generates ‘workslop’ – content that purports to be good work but lacks the substance to improve task performance. According to Nanna Inie, however, it is extremely complex to compare such studies because the participants' profession, what they use AI for, and their cultural background all influence their experience of AI.

Nanna Inie sees the strong technical expertise of IDA members as a good starting point for using AI and getting the most out of it. At the same time, she is also pleased that enthusiasm for quality improvement is not the only factor. 53 per cent of IDA members also see the fact that the tools can give them incorrect and inaccurate results as a barrier to their use of AI: ‘This is the right concern to have, and here you can see the members' high level of expertise.’

Researcher warns against IDA members' AI optimism

Does AI make us dumber? Based on this survey, IDA members say no – and might even add that the opposite is true. So there is no concern about cognitive decline here.

Before Nanna Inie answers the question, she would like to point out the problem with self-reporting when it comes to such personal areas as professionalism, job satisfaction, creativity and thinking. Even in an anonymous survey, it takes a lot to admit that one's professional abilities have declined. ‘In many cases, people are not aware that their ability to assess their own performance is not always in line with reality,’ explains Nanna Inie.

Nanna Inie recounts a placebo study in which the participants in the experiment assessed that they themselves had become more skilled and their product better because they had used AI, when in reality they had been chatting with a human being.

She also believes that IDA members are biased when they respond to the significance of AI for their own abilities.

For example, ‘that you believe yourself to be the exception to the rule because you are an expert’ or ‘seduced by the fact that the AI result is better than it is because it is so linguistically powerful.’

‘Now, I hope I don't fall out with all the engineers in Denmark for saying this about their bias,’ laughs Nanna Inie, but she nevertheless dares to answer the question of whether AI makes us dumber: "Yes, at least over time, because in the long run there is a risk of losing skills that we do not maintain. The brain's muscles must be used, otherwise they will disappear."

She supports her point of view by referring to a study from Lancet this year, which showed that endoscopists who used AI became worse at diagnosing. The study is relevant to highlight, as their job function may resemble the scientific way of working of IDA members.

Nanna Inie also wants to point out another cost that we often forget, namely what she calls ‘opportunity cost’, which she explains in this way: ‘The fact that we miss out on developing something is also a loss.’ So it is not only the danger of cognitive decline over time that the researcher from the IT University warns against, but also the decline in opportunities.

Young people are more sceptical about AI than older generations

The youngest of IDA's working members (under 30) are the age group most sceptical about the use of AI and its impact on working life. Twenty-one per cent of this age group believe that their ability to come up with new ideas and think critically is being weakened, while only 7 per cent of 50-59-year-olds feel that their ability to come up with new ideas is being weakened and 12 per cent feel that their critical thinking is being weakened.

To explain this difference, Nanna Inie first focuses on the older members: "To put it a bit bluntly, I've met several older managers who are all for anything that can be automated. The more responsibility you have in a company, the happier you are with productivity and profit, and then the enthusiasm for optimising the bottom line outshines any scepticism about job satisfaction and quality,‘ she explains, adding, ’and then they may also be afraid of being left behind due to technological developments, which they would rather not admit. "

Nanna Inie's experience is also that younger people are very good at being sceptical. She is pleased that it is not only the impact on their own professional skills that concerns young people, but also AI's impact on the climate and the environment: 25 per cent of members under the age of 40 see the climate impact as a barrier to their use of AI, while this is only true for 10 per cent of members over the age of 50.

In addition, the scepticism of young people may stem from their greater understanding of the power of artificial intelligence and thus its competition with human intelligence. They are at the beginning of their working lives, looking forward to working with AI as an omnipresent technology, and in order to gain a foothold in it, they need to combine curiosity with scepticism.

Collegial collaboration: AI weakens more than it strengthens

The only area where members experience a higher degree of weakening than strengthening when using AI is their need to spar with and ask for help from colleagues. Here, 31 per cent feel that the need for collegial sparring has been weakened, while only 11 per cent feel that AI has strengthened the need to consult with colleagues and ask for help.

Nanna Inie sees this lack of collegial sparring as an example of ‘opportunity cost,’ where you miss out on chatting at the coffee machine and the relationships that arise when you reach out for help. And this is indeed a loss, as according to Realdania's major study of Danes' quality of life, everyday social interactions are the most important single factor in our quality of life.

IDA members were also asked to describe how AI has affected collaboration and relationships with colleagues. Here, there are several examples of AI causing division or conflict in the workplace. For example, trust in colleagues is weakened when AI is used indiscriminately: It creates rifts in trust when otherwise sensible people report that they “just had AI look at” a task that they could easily do themselves – and then present a poor result or, as another writes: I am very sceptical when someone over 40 comes in and shows some AI-generated crap that is useless.

It is not IDA members who are polarising the discussion about AI

"When I give lectures on AI, I find that people become very polarised about it. They want it to be either good or bad. But it's not that simple," says Nanna Inie.

This suggests that IDA members are well aware that the discussion about AI and its impact on working life is not black and white. For most members, the answer to the question of whether different aspects of working life are weakened or strengthened by AI is ‘neither’. And this applies to all aspects, i.e. the impact on collegial cooperation, job satisfaction, critical thinking, creativity, new ideas and professional skills.

It is striking that such a large proportion of respondents – 43 per cent on average – chose the ‘neither’ option in the survey. Nanna Inie offers some suggestions as to why so many chose this response category.

From one perspective, it may be that IDA members want to express that AI is not as crucial a factor in working life as it has been made out to be in the media and in the debate.

Or, conversely, precisely because AI is such a pervasive and ubiquitous technology, members feel that they cannot say just one thing about it. In other words, ‘neither/nor’ is IDA members' way of distancing themselves from the polarised debate and instead saying that the story of AI's impact on professionalism and job satisfaction is complex and pulls in many directions.