Application Assignment (Emotional-Tracking AI In the Workplace)

Application Assignment

The article by the Conversation titled Emotion-tracking AI on the job: Workers fear being watched – and misunderstood, presents how organizations today use emotional intelligence devices to monitor employees. The author notes how numerous industries, including call centers, banks, nursing, and caregiving, are already using emotional AI to monitor their employees’ internal status and how they conduct their jobs (Andalibi, 2024). Experts have raised the alarm over this issue, claiming the validity of this tool is not scientifically credible, and it trespasses on the worker's privacy and also promotes racial, gender, and disability bias. On the other hand, some employees have lamented that this approach is punitive as it invades their privacy, affects their employment status and work performance, and leads to mental health issues.

Relevancy to Course Concept

This issue relates to the classroom concept of social and technological forces within the workplace. Technological advancements within the workplace have enabled more effortless task performance, but at the same time, they have brought a greater share of challenges. While it has bridged the distance and increased remote working, it has also reconstructed and changed the workplace structures and also relationships among employees (Burgess & Connell, 2020). As observed in the selected article, employers use emotional tracking AI to monitor employees through their tones, emotions, and facial expressions, which exemplifies the workplace's significant social and technological aspects. Still, this technology negatively affects the employees and lowers their performance because they feel primarily dissatisfied by the invasion of their privacy, which may disrupt their mental health.

Personal View

Work satisfaction is achieved when the work values align with engagement (Busque-Carrier et al., 2022). Therefore, from a personal angle, while employers use new technology to enhance workplace activities, they must also consider that employees are humans and have feelings that directly impact their performance. Therefore, using technologies such as emotional-tracking AI to track employees demoralizes them and is unethical because it infringes on their privacy. Thus, in support of the employee's and scholars’ views on the article, using such technology may give a negative impression about them and perpetuate stigma against them. Organizations must consider carefully integrating technology in the workplace to avoid harming the employees.