Giving employees early autonomy over AI has its benefits: study

'Giving employees the power to have the final say over AI early on is critical to their learning'

BY Dexter Tilo 18 Sep 2024

A new study from the University of Auckland is suggesting that giving employees the authority to override AI decisions from the start significantly enhances their motivation and accelerates learning.

The research, led by Dr. Frank Ma, a lecturer at the University of Auckland Business School, involved online tasks designed to replicate real-world decision-making scenarios. In these tasks, 161 participants were asked to make decisions alongside AI systems.

"Overall, our study shows that giving employees the power to have the final say over AI early on is critical to their learning. Humans can pick up on nuances that artificial intelligence can't, so people need the power to make the final call," Ma said as quoted by the University of Auckland.

He cited as an example the case of a financial specialist at a bank.

"You input details for a mortgage application, and the AI system recommends declining it. While the system is based on hard data, as a human, you can recognise nuances—'soft' information—that AI can miss. This is where the ability to overrule the system is beneficial," he explained.

Impact of incentive schemes

Dr. Ma, along with co-researchers Stijn Masschelein and Vincent Chong from the University of Western Australia, found that combining early autonomy with incentive pay further increases employee engagement.

According to Ma, immediate flexibility gives employees more opportunities to override system decisions while incentive pay ensures that they will make an effort to make the final call accurately.

"Employees with incentive schemes and immediate flexibility get a better understanding of their roles and improve their performance," he said.