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Artificial intelligence is no longer a topic of the future. It writes texts, designs images, analyzes data, and simulates conversations. In many workplaces, it has become a constant companion – quiet, efficient, and often impressive. Yet as technology grows smarter, a subtle but essential question arises:
What is AI actually doing to us – psychologically, emotionally, and humanly?
How does it change our thinking, our creativity, and our emotional balance?
Two recent studies provide surprisingly human answers. They reveal that AI can weaken our sense of creativity – and, in the context of mental health, even pose risks.
When the Machine Seems Smarter – and We Feel Smaller
A research team led by Angela Faiella and Aleksandra Zielińska discovered that people feel less creative when using AI tools, even when their results are objectively better.
In other words, we may produce more efficiently, but we experience ourselves as less creative.
Psychologically, this matters deeply. Our sense of creativity doesn’t just depend on the final outcome but on the experience of creating – struggling, doubting, experimenting. When a tool takes over that process, the result may be impressive, but it feels less personal, less ours.
In the workplace, this can have subtle consequences. Employees increasingly report feeling like their contributions are “replaceable,” as if they’re executing tasks rather than shaping them. Their personal impact seems harder to measure when an algorithm can perform the same task in seconds. Over time, this can erode self-efficacy – the belief that one’s own actions make a difference.
Self-efficacy is one of the strongest protective factors for mental health. When it weakens, stress, exhaustion, and emotional disengagement tend to rise.
Why the Feeling of Control Matters So Much
Our brains thrive on a delicate balance between control and curiosity. We need routines to feel safe, but novelty to feel alive. AI systems alter that balance: they take decision-making off our plate – often for good reasons – but also remove the small moments of autonomy that give us a sense of agency.
At work, this can mean we optimize rather than create. We check results instead of exploring ideas. We respond rather than initiate. Over time, that leads to a paradoxical state of high efficiency but low sense of meaning.
When AI Becomes Therapeutic – and Dangerous
The risk becomes even greater when AI is used where people are most vulnerable: in mental health support. Researchers at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI tested how AI systems respond to sensitive topics like depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts.
The findings were alarming. Some chatbots reacted empathically, while others minimized distress or gave inappropriate – even dangerous – advice. Some systems showed clear bias, stigmatizing people with schizophrenia or substance-use disorders more than those with depression.
This highlights a simple truth: even when AI sounds understanding, it doesn’t truly understand us. It can detect patterns but not meaning. It can mimic empathy but not feel it.
If employees in emotionally difficult situations turn to AI-based tools – out of curiosity, loneliness, or lack of access to human support – the results can be risky. Incorrect responses or a lack of genuine resonance can amplify isolation rather than ease it.
The Psychological Dilemma: Trusting What Cannot Feel
Humans have a natural tendency to anthropomorphize machines. When a chatbot responds warmly, we instinctively project empathy onto it. But this trust is based on illusion. It’s our own humanity reflected back at us.
Psychologically, this can lead to disappointment or even emotional dependence. Our brains respond to human-like language and feedback using the same neural circuits activated in real relationships. When that connection isn’t reciprocated, it leaves a subtle emotional void.
In the workplace, this is especially relevant. As feedback, communication, and guidance become increasingly automated, we risk losing one of the strongest buffers against stress: authentic human connection.
What We Need from a Psychological Perspective
AI is neither good nor bad – it’s an amplifier. It mirrors the consciousness with which we use it. If it overwhelms us, it’s rarely the technology itself but the way we let it define our roles and boundaries.
For organizations, this means creating awareness: helping employees understand how AI influences perception, motivation, and self-efficacy. It means preserving creative spaces where original thinking can thrive. It means strengthening emotional intelligence, so people recognize when AI oversteps its limits. And it means redefining leadership to emphasize genuine recognition and appreciation – things that no algorithm can replace.
How to Stay Mentally Balanced with AI
- Reflect on your relationship with AI. Are you using it to support yourself – or to replace yourself?
- Reclaim your role in the process. Let AI offer ideas, but shape them yourself. That’s where meaning and pride return.
- Talk openly about overload. Feeling uneasy about automation is not weakness – it’s healthy awareness.
- Don’t use AI for emotional regulation. It can inform you, but not comfort you. Human conversations remain irreplaceable.
- Stay curious, not complacent. Ask yourself: Does this tool make me more alive – or more passive?
A New Kind of Balance
The challenge of our time isn’t to stop AI but to integrate it humanely. Technology should expand what makes us human – not erode it.
AI mirrors our drive for efficiency, control, and perfection. But it also reminds us of what only humans can offer: empathy, imperfection, and meaning. Perhaps the task ahead is to bring both worlds together – the precision of machines and the depth of human emotion.
Only then can technological progress become personal growth, not alienation.
Reflection Exercise: Your Relationship with AI
How do you feel when you use AI – inspired or drained?
Does AI make you feel more creative, or more replaceable?
In which areas of your life do you need genuine human connection – and where can technology truly help?
Becoming aware of these patterns helps maintain psychological balance between human and machine – at work and beyond.
Sources
Faiella, A., & Zielińska, A. (2024). Do AI tools undermine our sense of creativity? New study says yes. Published on PsyPost.org
