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HR teams are reporting being bogged down by overly lengthy grievances framed around legal precedents that don’t even exist. Rearing its head on a daily basis, the culprit is generative AI.
Have you ever felt so aggrieved you couldn’t articulate yourself properly? Maybe you considered letting AI be angry for you?
If the answer is yes, and your choice of battleground was email, you may be one of a growing number of individuals who’ve ruined a HR administrator’s day.
Within the sector, employees of all seniority levels are reporting a huge increase in grievances rustled up by AI. I was personally made aware of the fact by my other half, who had some choice words (keeping it PG13) about the extra legwork being created at her own workplace.
In a recent article by the FT, Anna Bond, a legal director at Lewis Silkin, described how the nature of complaints shifted seemingly overnight. Complaints are suddenly lacking the relevant and personal detail required, are framed in an overly formal tone, and arrive concealed in ten page Google docs instead of 250 word email summaries.
The worst part, however, is that assumed knowledge is now absolutely rife – and it’s the polar opposite of helpful. Many of the cases giving off uncanny valley are bluntly calling for (or threatening) action based on legal precedents that either don’t exist, or are being applied in completely the wrong context.
Generative AI has a tendency to flatter and vindicate the human bashing out prompts, meaning responses are typically framed in a way that reaches to give the user credibility first and foremost. In the context of folks sharing personal grievances, this inherent placation is making people feel not only justified, but emboldened enough to fight cases against their employers built on a house of cards.
Sinead Casey, an employment partner at Linklaters, aptly described AI generated complaints as ‘confidently incompetent’, explaining that the technology ‘isn’t designed to produce legal documents.’
HR departments are used to handling displaced anger, with many an aggrieved employee believing they’re fighting corporate entities directly over the phone, and not small offices of honest workers genuinely trying to mediate and tick off their own weekly quotas.
