The key path
- According to a new report, some workers are using AI to do their jobs and keep quiet about it.
- A survey by KPMG and the University of Melbourne found that 57% of employees have used AI at work without disclosure.
- This group has adopted AI-generated work as its own, according to the findings.
Workers are using AI tools to automate critical tasks — often without their employer’s knowledge or permission, according to a new report released Monday by Business Insider.
For example, Noah Olson, a software engineer who worked for a small roofing company in Ohio, used AI to eliminate half of his tasks during the two years he was with the company. He didn’t tell his employer that he used AI to complete basic tasks and spent the rest of his time leisurely browsing Reddit and YouTube.
“I was copying and pasting all my work into an AI agent like Cursor or CloudCode, and I let it do the work,” Olson told Business Insider. “So instead of working about 40 hours a week, I’ll work about 20 hours a week.”
Related: A Connecticut Town Is Experimenting With A 4-Day Workweek—And It Looks Like It’s Working
Olsen isn’t the only one. A global survey conducted by KPMG and the University of Melbourne earlier this year found that 57 percent of the more than 30,000 workers surveyed said they had used AI at work without disclosure. This group has adopted AI-generated work as its own, according to the findings.
Rapid advances in the ability to handle complex work tasks, such as creating PowerPoint presentations and research reports, fuel the trend of using AI tools in the workplace. AI often leads to “polished, finished reports and spreadsheets that look incredible,” AI consultant Glenn Hopper told Business Insider.
“If you didn’t know AI did it, you’d think it took hours for someone to create something like this,” Hooper told the outlet.
Related: Openai is paying former investment bankers $150 an hour to train its AI
A McKinsey report released last week found that current AI technology could theoretically automate 57 percent of work hours in the U.S. today. This number is an estimate of how technology may change the types of tasks that people complete, not a prediction of job losses. The report notes that AI can take over more routine tasks, freeing up workers to apply their skills to new contexts. For example, workers can spend less time on basic research and more time developing and interpreting questions.
However, using AI comes with the risk of AI deception or errors – leading to costly mistakes. Big Four consulting firm Deloitte was caught using AI in a $290,000 report published in July after an outside researcher found at least 20 examples of AI deception in the study, including references to fictional academic research papers. Deloitte updated the study with a note that it used AI to help write the report. The firm had to partially reimburse the Australian government for the study.
Deloitte came under further scrutiny last week after a Canadian newspaper reported that it had faked citations stemming from fictional academic papers in a $1 million health care report to the Canadian government. In response, Deloitte Canada said it was revising the report.
The key path
- According to a new report, some workers are using AI to do their jobs and keep quiet about it.
- A survey by KPMG and the University of Melbourne found that 57% of employees have used AI at work without disclosure.
- This group has adopted AI-generated work as its own, according to the findings.
Workers are using AI tools to automate critical tasks — often without their employer’s knowledge or permission, according to a new report released Monday by Business Insider.
For example, Noah Olson, a software engineer who worked for a small roofing company in Ohio, used AI to eliminate half of his tasks during the two years he was with the company. He didn’t tell his employer that he used AI to complete basic tasks and spent the rest of his time leisurely browsing Reddit and YouTube.
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