The impact of the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) on workers’ experiences remains underexamined. Although AI-enhanced processes can benefit workers (e.g., by assisting with exhausting or dangerous tasks), they can also elicit psychological harm (e.g., by causing job loss or degrading work quality). Given AI’s uniqueness among other technologies, resulting from its expanding capabilities and capacity for autonomous learning, we propose a functional-identity framework to examine AI’s effects on people’s work-related self-understandings and the social environment at work. We argue that the conditions for AI to either enhance or threaten workers’ sense of identity derived from their work depends on how the technology is functionally deployed (by complementing tasks, replacing tasks, and/or generating new tasks) and how it affects the social fabric of work. Also, how AI is implemented and the broader social-validation context play a role. We conclude by outlining future research directions and potential application of the proposed framework to organizational practice.

人工智能 (AI) 的实施对工人体验的影响仍未得到充分检验。尽管人工智能增强的流程可以使工人受益（例如，通过协助完成令人筋疲力尽或危险的任务），但它们也可能引起心理伤害（例如，通过导致失业或降低工作质量）。鉴于人工智能在其他技术中的独特性，源于其不断扩展的能力和自主学习能力，我们提出了一个功能身份框架来检查人工智能对人们与工作相关的自我理解和工作中的社会环境的影响。我们认为，人工智能增强或威胁员工从工作中获得的认同感的条件取决于技术在功能上的部署方式（通过补充任务、替换任务、和/或产生新任务）以及它如何影响工作的社会结构。此外，人工智能的实施方式和更广泛的社会验证环境也发挥了作用。最后，我们概述了未来的研究方向和拟议框架在组织实践中的潜在应用。