{"id":82017,"date":"2025-10-15T11:09:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T11:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/82017\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T11:09:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T11:09:16","slug":"replacing-workers-with-ai-wont-actually-work-expert-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/82017\/","title":{"rendered":"Replacing workers with AI won’t actually work, expert says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Companies that prioritize artificial intelligence-heavy workplace engagement over human workers are courting mediocrity, according to one business professor who\u2019s closely tracking AI use on the job.<\/p>\n

Tulane University management and AI expert Shuhua Sun, an associate professor in the A. B. Freeman School of Business, said companies that automatically cut jobs and replace them with AI tools are overlooking broader implications increasingly linked to AI disruption.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI is a powerful tool, but its value depends on how it\u2019s integrated with human expertise,\u201d Sun noted. \u201cThe human side of work \u2014 tacit knowledge, context, and judgment \u2014 remains very difficult to replicate. Companies that view AI as a replacement for people risk mediocrity, while those that use it to empower talent are more likely to gain a sustainable advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sun, an expert in organizational behavior who studies how people and teams use social and technological systems, believes AI adoption is never automatic and that AI still struggles at tasks traditionally given to human workers, who have tacit expertise and good judgment.<\/p>\n

In a 2025 Tulane University study <\/a> supervised by Sun that monitored 250 workers who either used or didn\u2019t use ChatGPT at their job for one week, researchers found that only staffers who used the AI application \u201cactively\u201d gained meaningful benefits. The study noted that those employees were using ChatGPT to improve their job performance, identify the specific problems they were trying to solve, and determine how they could optimize AI to support their goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenerative AI use doesn’t automatically make people more creative,” Sun said. “It boosts creativity only for employees who use metacognitive strategies \u2014 those who actively analyze their tasks, monitor their thought processes, and adjust their approaches.”<\/p>\n

Workplace experts say Sun has a valid point on the dangers of a company sliding into mediocrity by excessively using AI, especially if it’s at the expense of human workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver-automation takes away from what makes brands and companies distinct,\u201d said Debra Andrews, founder and president of Marketri, a marketing consultancy that works with companies implementing AI into their operational strategies. \u201cEverything begins to look generic, and it all falls into this grey area of rapid output but no strategic thinking behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrews points to how the AI-output term \u201cworkslop\u201d has taken off. \u201cAI can produce faster outputs, but it can\u2019t replicate the nuance, empathy, and strategic thinking that comes only from human experience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Other workplace experts agree, noting how aggressively companies are putting AI to work can come with negative ramifications.<\/p>\n

\u201cTulane is pretty spot on with this one,\u201d said Rory Bokser, an AI specialist and head of product at Montreal-based Moken.io. \u201cThe business urge to apply AI often means the business urge to automate the hell out of the human contribution. If you start looking at your business that way, you naturally flatten your business\u2019s structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

What AI systems can\u2019t do is \u201cfollow their gut\u201d in key moments. \u201cAI can predict, but predicting is a poor man\u2019s substitute for creativity and instinct,” Bokser said. “Remove the human from the stack and you get a business that\u2019s still only doing things the way it\u2019s always been done.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Companies that prioritize artificial intelligence-heavy workplace engagement over human workers are courting mediocrity, according to one business professor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,53293,53292,53291,61,60,7305,80,53290],"class_list":["post-82017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-business-professor","tag-human-expertise","tag-human-workers","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sun","tag-technology","tag-tulane-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}