Utopia

There are concerns that Artificial Intelligence will result in many people losing their jobs, as AI-enabled systems replace them. (Weforum, 2025)

 I began my professional career in 1984, marking the start of a period of unprecedented advancement in workplace technology. There was no email, no texting, no mobile telephones, very few computers and no internet.(Schess, 2012)

When I was in school in the 1970s, my teachers spoke of a utopian future where technological advances would lead to a more leisurely society, with a three-day weekend on the horizon and a leisure-based economy. At that time, there was a view that future technological advances would reduce manual labour and productivity constraints.(Ferry, 1964)

However, it never transpired.

Since I started working in 1984, each new decade, with its advancements in workplace technology, has only brought more work, longer hours, higher expectations, and 24/7 connectivity to work.

• An always on culture; Email, laptops ,7x24 connectivity
• Efficiency tools allowed more to be done in less time, but employers responded by raising expectations, not reducing demands.
• Digital systems created more data, which in turn created more reporting, monitoring, and analysis requirements.
• Every wave of new technology required reskilling, learning curves that often increased stress and workload.

A new workplace stress, labelled technostress, was identified.(Riedl et al., 2012)

I recall that my father would occasionally work overtime as a driver for BOC. He called it two nights and a Sunday double time. I remember my mum and dad excitedly discussing how they would spend the extra money. In my corporate career, I was never paid a cent of overtime; I worked very long hours for decades without overtime pay, simply because it was expected. I still feel exploited.

My fear of the AI explosion is not about job losses, but about the increased workload and pace of work for workers, based on my observations over the last 40 years in the workplace.

• Automation does not automatically mean less work: It may shift effort from “routine tasks” to oversight, coordination, and firefighting when systems fail.
• Expectation inflation: If AI makes report-writing, coding, or planning 2x faster, managers may double the number of reports, projects, or deadlines.
• Surveillance risk: AI could intensify monitoring of performance and productivity, adding pressure rather than reducing it.
• Skill acceleration: Constant need to learn new AI tools could itself become a new workload.

However, there is an opportunity for things to be different

• Use AI as an assistant, not a whip.
• Redesign jobs, not just automate them – freeing time for creativity, judgement, and relationship-based work rather than adding more tasks.
• Protect boundaries – eradicate “always available” expectations, ensuring AI supports wellbeing rather than erodes it.
• Upskilling with purpose – building confidence with AI so staff feel empowered, not threatened.

What do you think the future AI-enabled workplace will bring—unemployment or increased workload, stress, and expectations?

Or is there a path where we can use AI to help achieve that utopian vision of my teachers?

References

Ferry, W.H. (1964) ‘The Triple Revolution’, Liberation, April [Preprint].

Riedl, R. et al. (2012) ‘Technostress from a neurobiological perspective: System breakdown increases the stress hormone cortisol in computer users’, Business & Information Systems Engineering, 4(2), pp. 61–69.

Schess, N.B. (2012) ‘Then and now: How technology has changed the workplace’, Hofstra Lab. & Emp. LJ, 30, p. 435.

Weforum (2025) The Future Jobs Report 2025. Available at: https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/infographics-94b6214b36/?utm (Accessed: 28 August 2025).