Rachel Wood Poster

Rachel Wood | Ep 15

by ExpertFuturistic WorkPodcasts
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AI and the Future of Work and Society.

In this episode, I chat with Rachel Wood, a speaker, researcher, writer, educator, and therapist.

We talk about Generative AI and Mental Wellbeing in the future workplace.

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Rachel Wood

Rachel is a speaker, researcher, writer, educator, therapist, and PhD candidate, researching the intersection of psychology, AI and the future of work, education and relationships.

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In this episode we explore the fascinating intersection of psychology, AI, and the future of work and relationships.

Rachel shares her unique journey from music education to counselling and finally to her current research in cyberpsychology. She discusses her PhD studies, which focus on the psychological impact of artificial intelligence on professionals, the workplace, and educational systems. Her insights on the rapid evolution of AI and its implications offer a fresh perspective on how we can adapt to the challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies.

Key Takeaways:

Psychological Skills for Navigating AI in the Workplace
Rachel introduces the concept of “psychosocial and vocational plasticity,” emphasising skills like cognitive flexibility, curiosity, and grit to help us adapt to rapid AI advancements. She provides practical exercises, such as arguing the opposite side of a disagreement, to enhance these skills.

Addressing AI Ambivalence
Mixed feelings towards AI—both excitement and hesitation—are natural, but they can be barriers to adoption. Rachel highlights the importance of open dialogue in workplaces to address these emotions and facilitate smoother integration of AI tools.

Generative AI and Human Relationships
The conversation delves into the potential of generative AI as artificial companions and its impact on relational dynamics. While AI can help isolated individuals, Rachel warns of the risks of unidirectional relationships eroding essential interpersonal skills like compromise and empathy.

Therapeutic Applications of AI
Rachel explores groundbreaking therapeutic applications, such as AI-generated future selves to reduce anxiety and AI tools for “self-parenting” younger selves. These tools could help individuals process trauma, find hope, and gain agency in healing.

The Future of Work and Vocational Identity
AI will likely redefine vocational identities, providing opportunities to focus on meaningful work and explore purpose beyond repetitive tasks. Rachel sees this as a chance to redesign work-life balance and foster creativity.

Thought-Provoking Moments:

  • AI in Debating and Cognitive Flexibility: Could algorithms that expose us to opposing viewpoints reshape how we engage with diverse ideas?
  • Bidirectional Relationships vs AI Companions: Are we at risk of losing critical relational skills in the age of always-agreeable artificial companions?
  • AI and Future Self Therapy: Can visualising a hopeful future self help us overcome current anxieties and break negative habits?

Rachel’s insights underscore the importance of intentionality in embracing AI. By equipping ourselves with adaptive skills and fostering meaningful human connections, we can shape a future where technology enriches rather than diminishes our lives. 🌐

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Future Worker Psychology

Current and future worker psychology is affected by how we use technology to do our work

by Futuristic Work

Anecdotally, it would seem that we have all, in one way or another, been impacted by the Lockdowns over the 2020/21 period. Professionally our psychology has shifted in how we are able to fulfil our work role. 

Computer Self-Efficacy

One of the many positive unintended consequences of Lockdowns, and remote work, is that we’ve become a lot more confident in our ability to use the available technology to get our work done (known as computer-self efficacy).

Not having IT or work colleagues nearby to ‘quickly help us’ with things we’re not sure of, helped us to figure out the tech for ourselves. Doing so empowered us with greater confidence to use the apps and tech we need to get our work done. As a result, we have become more productive in what we do and how we do it.  

Flexible Working

Although the technology was already available for much of the team to effectively and efficiently work in a remote/hybrid or flexible way, this way of working was often posited as ‘impossible’.

In 2014 the UK issued the Flexible Work Regulations, which allowed any worker (not just those with caring responsibilities) to apply for flexible working arrangements. This change in regulations garnered limited press coverage and, therefore, little awareness among workers. Even then, employers often based objections to flexible work on the overriding narrative that ‘working from home was impossible’, ‘it would lower productivity levels’ and ‘it wouldn’t be good for team cohesion, company culture and overall productivity delivery’ (etc).

Then the impossible became possible, and entire workforces were shifted to a remote working environment, within a short space of time. 

If workers had all gone back to the office after those first 3 weeks to ‘flatten the curve’, very little would have psychologically changed in how work got done. The ‘old normal’ would have remained.

What has changed

Extended lockdowns meant we had to:

  • Spend time and mental energy finding better ways to work from home
  • Turn part of our home into a better working solution
  • Develop physical and psychological strategies to juggle different work and home realms, personas and commitments

Effectively more hybrid

So, we’ve inadvertently done a self-taught crash course in how to work remotely. This means we have more choice in how we now ‘do hybrid’ more effectively. We’ve tasted the flexibility that working from home/anywhere gives us, but relish the community that in-office work gives us. Research by Stanford University showcases that 50% of workers want to keep it that way and see hybrid working as a big part of managing their work-life balance more effectively. 

The downside of technology in remote work

Because a number of workers have set up a home-based work environment, there is more opportunity for workers to start their workday earlier and end their workday later. Although this may seem to increase overall productivity, it has limited benefits. Working longer hours increases energy output and reduces personal time and the time needed to psychologically transition between two life realms. 

Workers have become more used to the concept of working while at home. The habit of ‘quickly checking’ emails/messages is a lot easier to indulge as we’ve become mentally more familiarly with working away from the office. The more we check and reply to work emails the more we set expectations of others that we are available after working hours. We reduce the ability to cognitively and emotionally recover from the energy required to perform our work role. We reduce the available time to spend on our own pursuits and time with our friends and family. 

If a dedicated workspace isn’t available to visually separate working space from private-time space, workers are more likely to be constantly reminded of work after working hours. This can be especially true if a laptop or work mobile is left on and notifications can be seen/heard outside of office hours. 

Going forward – technology for work

As technology continues to shift how we use and engage in our workplace, we need to become more mindful of how our use of technology is shifting our psychology about work. If we are more mindful of the impact of work-based technology in our everyday lives, we can take more proactive steps in either enhancing the benefits or curbing the negative personal and professional impact on our psychology, productivity and mental wellbeing. 

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How will technology change the jobs of the future?

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A recent Telegraph article on a book written by Nikolas Badminton called ‘Facing our Futures’ due to be published later in 2022 by Bloomberg, has highlighted a number of potential jobs that may be key for children to consider over the next few decades.

I admire anyone who takes a punt at predicting the future. We are individually racked by biases, worldviews and limited insights of world dynamics. But, I also wonder if we, as humans, are so enamoured by progress and technology that we place all our bets on universal acceptance of all upcoming technology and the complete integration of it into our daily lives. Although the use of new technology changes us as individuals and as a society, there are some fundamental elements of who we are, as humans, that will not change.

We need community. We need physical engagement with others. Some need more than others, but we need physical presence, we need physical touch, we need physical support. Machines can be a substitute, but they are just that, a temporary substitute.

We solve complex, nuanced, problems every day. Knowing how to reach and teach each individual child in a classroom is something AI cannot do. Fixing a burst water pipe behind the toilet under the stairs isn’t something a machine can easily sort. Emotionally supporting and counselling a returning veteran is not the realm of a therapy bot. There may be some very well-paid technology-based roles in the future, but that isn’t much different from similar well-paid technology-based roles now. There will be very few who either have the aptitude, desire or ability to fill those roles.

As for the metaverse and mixed reality. Facebook (or Meta, as MZ prefers to call it), Microsoft and Google are investing epic amounts of cash into this mixed reality environment. Their investment doesn’t mean that the majority of the population will actually engage with it to become ‘the way we do life’. It just means they currently speculate that it will make them a lot of money in the future. There are plenty of very clever people betting on this future semi-reality. But I suspect that there is a general growing undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the emptiness of technology. There seem to be more and more people who are stepping back from their constant interactions with tech and stepping into better connections with physical others. I suspect that the vast majority will use the metaverse for what they can personally get from it – for work and home – and then switch themselves off from it, go outside and meet with real people.

I think that, in general, we need to take a little bit more of a human-centred approach to how we view the workplace of 18 years hence. Will it change very much from the workplace of now for the general population? I would suggest not. We may be using different tools and apps to achieve the same or better levels of productivity, but the majority of our roles will just evolve to accommodate these better apps and these other ways of doing things, rather than us radically shifting to a whole new dimension of job availability and skillsets. As a case in point: when the motor vehicle became popular and the carriage less so, we may have ‘lost’ some key jobs and companies within the carriage-related industries, but the general gamut of jobs remained the same. We still had butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers; the mechanisation of transport just changed what those roles looked like. There is unlikely to be any greater revolution in the general workforce even with new technology being invented and engaged with.

I guess we can only wait and see what happens. However, I have a much more optimistic view of our place in the future world with technology. I cannot buy into the more pessimistic view of technology taking over all our jobs. But, we will have to just wait and see.

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Is the Future of Recruitment in AI and Algorithms?

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On the 23rd March it will have been 2 years since Boris Johnson ushered UK knowledge workers into a new era of doing businesses when he asked the UK public to stay home to ‘flatten the curve’. Much has changed since then, including how we recruit and onboard new staff. In July 2020 Dr Linda Kaye (a senior lecturer in CyberPsychology) wrote an interesting article about how future AI may help HR with new staff recruitment, using psychometric competency profiling, based on our online activities and purchasing behaviour.

This is a futuristic piece, with a focus on the recruitment process. Dr Kaye makes some really good points around the direction and potential positives of future recruitment using online behaviour as a psychometric tool to evaluate a candidate’s potential for the role. However, there are a number of concerns I have around using AI & Algorithms to select potential candidates:

* AI doesn’t pick up the subtle nuances that make us human.

* Big Tech have agendas and profit models that go outside of our individual and business interests

* A number of people either don’t have social media accounts or choose to not engage on social media and tend to do all their shopping locally

* Those pulling together job profiles competencies have their own set of biases around what type of person they would like in the role – and potentially reducing diversity and ability

Personally, I’m not sure I want an AI bot or the algorithms of Big Tech to skew my chances of landing my dream job. But, saying that, we do need to consider how dramatically work has shifted over the past 24 months, and how we are going to need to continually (physically and psychologically) adapt to a more tech-driven workplace and recruitment process.

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Is it better to talk to a blank screen, a photo or a 3D avatar of the person when in a virtual meeting?

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A research question that may need answering soon. At this point, from a presenters/meeting controller perspective, I can only guess that it is better to have a 3D avatar engaging with you with some body-language feedback, than an array of black video screens with no visual or auditory feedback.

Microsoft have just announced their introduction of 3D avatars as part of their strategy to dominate virtual meetings within the Metaverse.

From a participant perspective, we do know that the creation of a better looking avatar in VR can improve a person’s overall self-esteem. Named ‘The Proteus Effect’ and ‘The Ideal Elf’, having an avatar that is better looking than your real self, can give you more confidence in the VR world. This confidence gained in VR then translates back into the real world – giving the person behind the avatar more confidence in offline situations.

What does this mean for virtual business interactions?

– It may help to increase levels of self-confidence for less confident colleagues.

– It may reduce the number of black screens – as we don’t have to appear constantly engaged for the entire meetings, the avatar can do that for us

– It may be easier for the presenter to engage with others on the call, especially if they are getting more regular body-language feedback – even if it is from an avatar.

– It could even reduce the amount of zoom fatigue that is created by ‘the mirror effect’ of having to constantly self-adjust when seeing a reflection of self on-screen, potentially leaving to lower levels of exhaustion at the end of a workday.

I do have a few concerns though.

– If the avatar’s actions reflect the authors tone of voice, we will have to constantly mentally adjust our tone of voice to ensure the avatar is reflecting (or potentially not reflecting) our current feelings.

– Will this technology further alienate those who have lower levels of confidence when it comes to tech uptake? If you are not familiar with the new tech, having to learn how to use it in order to fulfil your job function, or keep up to speed with other members of the team, can add a lot of additional stress and anxiety to your role.

– For those having to already switch between multiple video conferencing platforms, such as freelancers, consultants or the self-employed, learning multiple complicated meta-based 3D virtual meeting platforms can become a real barrier to business productivity.

For Microsoft, this is another step forward towards a more 3D virtual work environment. They do, however, needs to go some way in developing easier to use augmented reality technology, if they are to create good up-take in the metaverse environment amongst business users. Although they seem to be head-to-head with Facebook (it may be some time before I can call them ‘Meta’) in the race for the metaverse domination, I do wonder if a smaller, more dynamic, tech company may just pull the meta-rug out from under their very large extended-reality feet.

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