With all of the optimism about how synthetic intelligence will make issues extra productive within the office — in addition to the worry round its potential to displace staff — one other dimension to AI in life and work can be changing into extra obvious: How individuals are starting to work together with the expertise in new (and generally unsettling) methods.
HR Dive spoke with Michael Elkon, associate at Fisher Phillips, about what’s on the horizon for compliance and AI within the office.
Staff utilizing AI to harass a co-worker
When the web turned commonplace within the mid-to-late ‘90s, employers marveled at the way it made the office extra environment friendly. On the similar time, “folks found out, ‘Oh wait, there’s porn on the web,’” Elkon stated.
All of the sudden, specific pictures and movies couldn’t solely be accessed simply, however shared with or despatched to others. That sharing led to Title VII lawsuits alleging sexual harassment.
Elkon famous the current story of a teenager in Spain who used AI to deep-fake nude pictures of classmates. It isn’t a lot of a leap, he stated, to think about workers utilizing the identical expertise and strategies in opposition to co-workers.
Finally, “lurid tales like that … are going emigrate into the office,” he stated.
Employees changing into overly hooked up to AI — romantically or in any other case
Lately, a narrative went viral of a New Jersey man who reportedly fell in love with an AI chatbot and proposed — regardless of already having a spouse and a two-year-old little one. Removed from being simply the plot of a science fiction film, individuals are already starting to develop seemingly unhealthy attachments to AI instruments, and a few of these attachments are taking place at work, Elkon stated.
Elkon spoke on the subject at a SHRM 2025 convention session earlier this summer season alongside his spouse, Andrea, a medical psychologist. Through the Q&A portion of the session, an HR chief stepped ahead to say the difficulty had already cropped up at her office with a former worker.
“You will have this complete overlay the place you might have youthful people who find themselves used to AI of their day-to-day lives. You will have youthful people who find themselves particularly utilizing AI for emotional features, as a result of it will get across the loneliness that lots of people really feel. And then you definately dump AI instruments into the office,” Elkon stated. “It then turns into one thing that you just kind of have to handle.”
Employees requesting AI as an inexpensive lodging
As staff develop extra acquainted with — and doubtlessly depending on — AI, each to perform duties and for emotional support, employers are more likely to see a rising set of AI lodging requests, Elkon famous.
AI is poised to be a game-changer in the case of accessibility, making it possible employers will take care of a wide range of requests to accumulate or use instruments that higher allow staff to do their job. Whereas all these requests are possible acquainted territory, a employee with nervousness or autism may equally request fixed entry to a chatbot for emotional or social assist — one thing most employers possible haven’t handled earlier than.
Whereas these new considerations might introduce new conditions for employers, going again to the fundamentals will help them start to develop insurance policies and make selections. For instance, regardless of the request, the interactive process continues to be the gold customary for selecting lodging: “Courts have frameworks already,” Elkon stated. AI is “only a new piece of expertise that may doubtlessly become involved in an inexpensive lodging evaluation.”
And for extra novel circumstances, like AI situationships within the office? There’s no actual playbook fairly but.
“I feel we’re kind of on the cusp of lots of issues,” Elkon stated. “Like every other technological advance, individuals are going to have to determine, you realize, what are the best and fallacious methods to make use of it.”
