Is expertise dying? Survey reveals how Aussies are reacting to AI in the workplace
Aussies across every profession have responded in a groundbreaking new survey that has revealed exactly how we’re feeling about our new dystopia.
Artificial intelligence has exploded into modern workplaces with a force that very few predicted.
Just about every profession that requires a computer has been rocked by the sudden change, with millions of workers across the globe forced to essentially adapt or suffer.
In less than two years, generative AI has evolved from a kooky novelty to a borderline necessity. It’s gone from something that could barely understand how to generate human hands without adding four extra fingers, to being able to produce uncannily lifelike videos that are now fooling even the sharpest of scrollers.
Corporations across every continent are now scrambling to adopt anything with the letters “AI” attached, convinced that failure to do so will mean falling behind in the monetary race.
It’s largely why computer chip companies like Nvidia have seen their values soar to unprecedented peaks this year, but that’s a different issue entirely.
The boom can be likened to frenzied Titanic passengers rushing to lifeboats, except in this case, the industry is running primarily off fear of missing the next great industrial revolution.
Behind the scenes, some executives privately admit they barely understand the tools they are deploying. But deploy them they must, because everyone else is doing it.
This panic-driven race has created a deeper, more unsettling possibility: that companies are using their workers as unwitting training systems for flawed, experimental AI.
Employees become the safety net and the buffer against catastrophic errors. Still, the writing is on the wall once these models mature and absorb enough institutional knowledge to function without human correction.
A brand new report from Professionals Australia has laid bare exactly how Aussies feel about being forced to navigate the revolution, and several of the respondents have not shied away from the hard truths.
AI ‘not always for the better’
Workers across the board have described similar scenes in multiple fields, where AI systems have arrived suddenly, with rushed internal and mandatory “training programs” being rolled out for employees.
“AI arrived in our workplace without warning. We’re expected to trust it, but not question it,” one worker wrote.
According to the data, 78 per cent of professionals already use AI tools, but fewer than 20 per cent have actually been trained for them. The report states that “AI is no longer a future issue. It is already influencing who gets hired, promoted, or monitored.”
Meanwhile, 84 per cent of respondents fear AI being used to make decisions affecting their work, and 65 per cent cite privacy and data integrity as their top concern.
The common promise dished out by corporations is that AI will simply help streamline work and ensure that workers can spend their time more effectively.
The professionals surveyed offer a different story. The report says that instead of reducing workload, AI frequently “adds tasks rather than removes them, because outputs must be checked, corrected or re-done.”
One ICT worker explained: “It is meant to save time, but it keeps creating more work.”
“It is like managing a junior colleague who never learns from their mistakes,” another wrote.
While it is true that AI can save enormous amounts of time for some tasks, especially calculation and formatting, the truth is that very few of those who are championing its effectiveness have grasped the broader issues, including the eventual mass displacement of the workforce and the issue of general human obsolescence.
Former AI scientist Geoffrey Hinton, who has been quoted ad nauseam on this topic, suggests that we are not yet equipped as a species to understand the full extent of the danger AI poses, and we toy with it for economic gain at our peril.
But, as with most strategies implemented by the corporate sector, AI is being viewed as a moneymaker first.
“We are not scared of AI. We are scared of what happens when no one listens to those who understand it,” one ICT professional put poignantly.
Expertise is slowly whittling away
Behind the statistics are people carrying invisible burdens. Many describe the sense of losing agency as systems appear with no consultation.
“Decisions that once relied on expertise are being replaced by opaque algorithms,” the report says.
It paints a picture of a very real scenario occurring across countless sectors today, where professionals are slowly allocating more of their work week to refining the work of AI, as opposed to conducting the task themselves.
While it might take more time for a human to complete the task from start to finish, the psychological impact on somebody who has built a career in the field, who is now simply being used as “the human in the loop”, is significant.
“We still make it work because that is what professionals do,” one scientist wrote in the survey.
The report itself never speculates about AGI, but the structural pattern it describes is the same pattern that precedes every automation-driven job loss in history.
When compounded across multiple nations, fields and companies, the haphazard implementation of AI runs the risk of causing a generational sense of existentialism.
With no clear future in sight, and with AI magnates like Elon Musk and Sam Altman proudly proclaiming that tens of millions will be without a job very soon, it’s not hard to understand why.
What are Aussies demanding?
It’s not all doom and gloom, however.
The report found that some professionals are optimistic about AI, but their optimism is conditional. They know what good AI looks like because they’ve seen what bad AI does.
They value transparency from their employer and feel much more comfortable knowing that their expertise is going to be valued long-term.
“The goal is collaboration between human thinking and machine efficiency,” one worker wrote.
“The strongest safeguard against failure is an informed workforce.”
They also want to know that their co-workers are clued in on the risks of letting AI do the lion’s share of the work, especially when it can make mistakes.
“It is like managing a junior colleague who never learns from their mistakes,” an engineer wrote.
The report also found that workers are demanding more regulation, with over 90 per cent of respondents calling for enforceable national standards, insisting that AI systems must be “explainable, traceable and accountable.”
“AI will not define Australia’s future. Professionals will.”
Thoughts? alexander.blair@news.com.au
Originally published as Is expertise dying? Survey reveals how Aussies are reacting to AI in the workplace
