The future of work: artificial intelligence, ruthless managers, psychopathic outcomes

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly extending into many areas of human life including the workplace. Its ability to function at a far greater speed and scale than individual human decision makers, offers dramatic cost and time savings and the execution of data analysis on a scale that would be otherwise unthinkable. By the same token, the consequences of badly designed, malevolently used or faulty systems are similarly amplified. This article builds on the observation that AI systems do not develop or operate in isolation but in the context of complex social, technical and organisational systems and that they can amplify what we term ‘psychopathic organisational praxis’ – uncaring and potentially cruel practices. We argue that AI supports psychopathic praxis both by becoming a means of amplifying individual human psychopathic practices and by encouraging psychopathic praxis through their influence within the broader social and organisational systems of which they are a part. We argue that the rapid uptake of AI systems will likely act as an accelerant to existing psychopathic organisational praxis. Through the lens of corporate psychopathy theory this paper investigates two major cases where this has happened – the UK Post Office scandal and the “Robodebt” scandal in Australia.