Can AI Help Provide Us With Work-Life Balance?

Despite these figures, AI is not some monstrous job-eater. It’s simply the latest result of humanity’s longstanding distaste for boredom.

Whether the watermills of millennia past or today’s electromechanics, plentiful evidence points to humanity’s long history of creating apparatus to undertake repetitive work, says Steven Miller, professor emeritus of information systems at Singapore Management University.

“Augmentation, or combining the human and the supertool, can help us improve efficiency and do new types of work that lead to innovation,” he says.

“We need to use the productivity-enhancing aspects of this new generation of AI tools to recycle freed-up human capacity within an organisation in order to put more time into exploration, experimentation, and iteration.”

Miller, co-author of the 2022 book Working with AI, which examines case studies of people and machines in exemplary tandem, previously said that leaders who use AI in a “lazy way” — to simply replace headcount — will see business plateau, while competitors who harness its innovative potential will get ahead.

“Compared to automation, which only works well under certain types of conditions, using AI to complement the worker is more widely applicable and flexible, and in this sense, more practical and economical,” he adds. “The challenge then is to use AI to produce new types of work.”
Perhaps the crux is how benevolent employers are. Can they be counted on to wield AI ethically?
What exactly this looks like is up for interpretation. Could it mean we get to craft dream jobs comprising interesting tasks we love best, kick away the menial bits, and score better work-life balance to boot?

Think of how a sweeper might trade in his broom to plot the best path for a cleaning bot, or a video creator might farm out editing to AI so as to lavish time on sexier plotlines.

“By taking on the repetitive and mundane tasks that can lead to burnout and dissatisfaction, AI allows workers to focus on the aspects of their jobs that are more interesting, engaging, and fulfilling,” AI chatbot ChatGPT explained when asked how its kind might create ideal jobs.

Judging by the platform’s one billion users a month, help is very welcome in drafting emails, doing research, troubleshooting code, and delegating everything tedious — from marketing to accounting, design, content creation, and customer service.