Great discussion this week on Human-Centred AI: Designing Healthy Workplaces with organisational psychologist Megan Blakely.

Rather than asking how AI can make us more efficient, Megan challenged us to ask a more important question:

What kind of work system are we creating when we introduce AI?

Some key insights from the session:

• AI changes work, it doesn’t simply reduce it
  AI often shifts work from doing to monitoring, creating new workload, vigilance and cognitive demands.
• Trust matters
  Both overtrusting and undertrusting AI can create problems. The goal is not blind acceptance or rejection, but appropriately calibrated trust.
• Three common AI failure modes

1. 1. We stop thinking.
   2. Work becomes harder, not easier.
   3. No one knows who is accountable.

• Wellbeing should be a design outcome
  Human-centred work design requires attention to autonomy, skill development, meaningful work, social connection, workload and psychological safety, not just system performance.
• AI failures are often system failures
  One of the most thought-provoking takeaways was: don’t ask who made the mistake, ask what made the mistake possible.

The session reinforced that successful AI adoption is as much about organisational psychology, culture, leadership and work design as it is about technology.

My thanks to Megan for sharing practical, evidence-based frameworks for creating AI-enabled workplaces that support both performance and wellbeing.

Slides

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