Competing with robots is making work worse

It’s said that as work becomes increasingly automated thanks to artificial intelligence, our special human traits — empathy and humor, creativity and kindness — will become only more valuable. Part of the solution may be designing technology systems that are more flexible — more “tell me how I can help” and less “press 1.” Bing Chat’s creators at Microsoft have released an update that will let users choose the attitude they want the bot to show: creative, balanced or precise. “People have called it ‘mansplaining as a service,’” notes Chamorro-Premuzic, “But actually, it’s more like a woman with imposter syndrome — it’s way too humble to be mansplaining, it’s always apologizing or saying ‘I might be biased.’” So perhaps the bigger lesson is that although robots have huge cost efficiencies over humans, they also have a downside that’s tougher to quantify but no less real. Studies of even “empathetic” bots have shown that they don’t have the positive impact on customers that real human beings have, especially if the customer is already upset.