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[paper] Evidence of a social evaluation penalty for using AI

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  • Significance

    As AI tools become increasingly prevalent in workplaces, understanding the social dynamics of AI adoption is crucial. Through four experiments with over 4,400 participants, we reveal a social penalty for AI use: Individuals who use AI tools face negative judgments about their competence and motivation from others. These judgments manifest as both anticipated and actual social penalties, creating a paradox where productivity-enhancing AI tools can simultaneously improve performance and damage one’s professional reputation. Our findings identify a potential barrier to AI adoption and highlight how social perceptions may reduce the acceptance of helpful technologies in the workplace.

    Abstract

    Despite the rapid proliferation of AI tools, we know little about how people who use them are perceived by others. Drawing on theories of attribution and impression management, we propose that people believe they will be evaluated negatively by others for using AI tools and that this belief is justified. We examine these predictions in four preregistered experiments (N = 4,439) and find that people who use AI at work anticipate and receive negative evaluations regarding their competence and motivation. Further, we find evidence that these social evaluations affect assessments of job candidates. Our findings reveal a dilemma for people considering adopting AI tools: Although AI can enhance productivity, its use carries social costs.

  • Significance

    As AI tools become increasingly prevalent in workplaces, understanding the social dynamics of AI adoption is crucial. Through four experiments with over 4,400 participants, we reveal a social penalty for AI use: Individuals who use AI tools face negative judgments about their competence and motivation from others. These judgments manifest as both anticipated and actual social penalties, creating a paradox where productivity-enhancing AI tools can simultaneously improve performance and damage one’s professional reputation. Our findings identify a potential barrier to AI adoption and highlight how social perceptions may reduce the acceptance of helpful technologies in the workplace.

    Abstract

    Despite the rapid proliferation of AI tools, we know little about how people who use them are perceived by others. Drawing on theories of attribution and impression management, we propose that people believe they will be evaluated negatively by others for using AI tools and that this belief is justified. We examine these predictions in four preregistered experiments (N = 4,439) and find that people who use AI at work anticipate and receive negative evaluations regarding their competence and motivation. Further, we find evidence that these social evaluations affect assessments of job candidates. Our findings reveal a dilemma for people considering adopting AI tools: Although AI can enhance productivity, its use carries social costs.

    This apparent tension between AI’s documented benefits

    That is one hell of an assumption to make, that AI is actually a benefit at work, or even a documented one, especially compared to a professional in the same job doing the work themselves.

  • This apparent tension between AI’s documented benefits

    That is one hell of an assumption to make, that AI is actually a benefit at work, or even a documented one, especially compared to a professional in the same job doing the work themselves.

    A rudimentary quick Internet search will provide a good bit of the "AI benefits at work" documentation for which you seek. 🤷♂

  • This apparent tension between AI’s documented benefits

    That is one hell of an assumption to make, that AI is actually a benefit at work, or even a documented one, especially compared to a professional in the same job doing the work themselves.

    a benefit of ai is that its faster than a human. on the other hand, its can be wrong

  • This apparent tension between AI’s documented benefits

    That is one hell of an assumption to make, that AI is actually a benefit at work, or even a documented one, especially compared to a professional in the same job doing the work themselves.

    I think its honestly pretty undeniable that AI can be a massive help in the workplace. Not all jobs sure but using it to automate toil is incredibly useful.

  • 39 Stimmen
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    N
    Uhh, dude. Haven’t you heard that Siri is basically useless? Maybe that’s why she just typed this post instead of inserting the meme.
  • San Francisco crypto founder faked his own death

    Technology technology
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    L
    Sounds like a tagline for a commercial. I just have no idea what it would be selling.
  • 133 Stimmen
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    A
    Breakthroughs are more or less of a myth. Everything is iterative.
  • 83 Stimmen
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    tattorack@lemmy.worldT
    Europe created something called "the platform work directive", or something along those lines. Basically means that platform jobs (i.e. Uber, Wolt, Just Eat) can no longer operate under a so-called "freelance model". Basically, if it looks like you're hiring employees, you must give them contracts like employees (along with everything that entails). It's already been agreed upon, so it's a matter of implementation. It's considered a "pillar" of the EU now, so being part of the EU means having the directive. Deadline for the implementation, as I've heard from 3F Copenhagen, should be 2026. I can't wait.
  • Airlines Are Selling Your Data to ICE

    Technology technology
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    F
    It’s not a loophole though.
  • The Document Foundation is proud to release LibreOffice 25.2.3

    Technology technology
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    somethingburger@jlai.luS
    View -> User Interface -> Tabs It already exists but is nowhere near as good as MS Office (like everything with LO).
  • Are We All Becoming More Hostile Online?

    Technology technology
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    A
    Back in the day I just assumed everyone was lying. Or trying to get people worked up, and we called them trolls. Learning how to ignore the trolls, and not having trust for strangers on the internet, coupled with the ability to basically not care what random people said is a lost art. Somehow people forgot to give other the people this memo, including the "you don't fucking join social networks as your self". Anonymity makes this all work. Eternal September newbies just didn't get it.
  • Microsoft's AI Secretly Copying All Your Private Messages

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    S
    Forgive me for not explaining better. Here are the terms potentially needing explanation. Provisioning in this case is initial system setup, the kind of stuff you would do manually after a fresh install, but usually implies a regimented and repeatable process. Virtual Machine (VM) snapshots are like a save state in a game, and are often used to reset a virtual machine to a particular known-working condition. Preboot Execution Environment (PXE, aka ‘network boot’) is a network adapter feature that lets you boot a physical machine from a hosted network image rather than the usual installation on locally attached storage. It’s probably tucked away in your BIOS settings, but many computers have the feature since it’s a common requirement in commercial deployments. As with the VM snapshot described above, a PXE image is typically a known-working state that resets on each boot. Non-virtualized means not using hardware virtualization, and I meant specifically not running inside a virtual machine. Local-only means without a network or just not booting from a network-hosted image. Telemetry refers to data collecting functionality. Most software has it. Windows has a lot. Telemetry isn’t necessarily bad since it can, for example, help reveal and resolve bugs and usability problems, but it is easily (and has often been) abused by data-hungry corporations like MS, so disabling it is an advisable precaution. MS = Microsoft OSS = Open Source Software Group policies are administrative settings in Windows that control standards (for stuff like security, power management, licensing, file system and settings access, etc.) for user groups on a machine or network. Most users stick with the defaults but you can edit these yourself for a greater degree of control. Docker lets you run software inside “containers” to isolate them from the rest of the environment, exposing and/or virtualizing just the resources they need to run, and Compose is a related tool for defining one or more of these containers, how they interact, etc. To my knowledge there is no one-to-one equivalent for Windows. Obviously, many of these concepts relate to IT work, as are the use-cases I had in mind, but the software is simple enough for the average user if you just pick one of the premade playbooks. (The Atlas playbook is popular among gamers, for example.) Edit: added explanations for docker and telemetry