- A new Microsoft survey about work trends throws up an unexpected insight about AI.
- While 49% of respondents are worried AI will replace jobs, more would delegate work to AI to lessen their workloads.
The culture of work throws up fascinating contrasts.
We work to live but also live to work. We are generation hustle, but we also want bare minimum Mondays. We are quietly quitting our jobs, but we are also victims of loud firings.
One of the most divisive subject among all these dualities is AI. We just can't make up our minds if the tech is a foe coming for our jobs or a friend, helping us improve our efficiency and productivity.
That's my main takeaway from Microsoft's new work trend index annual report that surveyed 31,000 full-time and self-employed workers in 31 countries in February and March.
Amid concerns about AI replacing jobs, the data revealed an unexpected insight: Employees are afraid of losing their jobs to AI, yes. But even more employees are eager for AI to lift part of the weight of work for them.
While 49% of those surveyed said they are worried AI will replace their jobs, even more — 70% — said they would delegate as much work as possible to AI to lessen their workloads.
Take my, job for example: I'm a reporter and an editor who has been told since journalism school that "computers" will soon take over my job.
I'm terrified of the day an AI writer will replace me and I'll be obsolete — like a DVD in a Netflix world. I'm even more terrified that an AI will feed me the wrong information for my reporting work.
But not everyone shares my fears.
"It's fascinating that people are more excited about AI rescuing them from burnout than they are worried about it eliminating their jobs," says Adam Grant, an author and organizational psychology professor, according to the report.
More interesting findings from the report: Not only did three in four people surveyed say they're ok with using AI for administrative tasks, 73% even said they would be comfortable using an AI tool for creative jobs.
And 80% of the respondents said they are looking for AI tools to help them summarize their meetings and action items.
Now that I can fully get behind.
And just so we're clear, an AI tool did not write this blog.