- Out of six American workers say they are lying on the use of AI to meet employment expectations
- Engineers who use AI are the new threat, not the tools themselves
- Many workers copy literate peers just to appear competent in modern workplaces
While AI’s tools are distributed in office environments, many American workers are now found in a strange situation: pretending to use artificial intelligence at work.
A recent survey carried out by the technology recruitment company Howdy.com revealed that a six employee claims to lie about the use of AI.
This phenomenon seems to be a reaction not only to management expectations, but also to deeper insecurities around the stability of employment in a saturated landscape of AI.
Most artificial survival
Under behavior, this is what some call “Ai-Nxity”, a discomfort born of contradictory stories.
On the one hand, companies urge employees to adopt AI to stimulate productivity; On the other hand, these same workers are warned that AI, or someone more skillful to use it, could soon replace them.
This feeling of pressure is particularly acute when workers who fear being moved by technically qualified peers, such as engineers who actively use LLM -based systems and other AI tools.
As a commentator said The register: “You can lose your job with an engineer who uses AI.”
For some, the message is clear: adapt or let yourself be behind.
At the end of 2023, an EY survey revealed that two thirds of white -collar workers feared being transmitted for the promotion by AI -informed colleagues.
In this environment, imitating the behavior of the literacy of AI becomes a way to cover yourself against obsolescence.
The lack of adequate training further complicates the image.
Howdy.com reports that a quarter of workers who should use AI receive no instruction on how to do so.
Without an appropriate guide, many are stuck between the expectations of management and the reality of poorly integrated AI systems.
Some abandon control of tools and simply act as if they already did.
Meanwhile, contradictory labor standards deepen confusion.
Another investigation by the Slack labor index revealed that almost half of the world’s office employees felt uncomfortable to tell managers that they use AI, which can make them lazy or non-original.
Thus, some pretend not to use AI even when they do.
At the heart of the question is an increasing gap between what companies report, “AI is the future” and what employees experience: unclear expectations, low support and competence change standards.
Whether AI really replaces jobs or not, psychological toll is already there, and pretending to be an AI user has become a new strange survival strategy.
