AI Anxiety and Its Related Factors: A Scoping Review

Background and Purpose

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of society and significantly impacts daily life and work, but its psychological repercussions, particularly AI-induced anxiety, are concerning. According to the American Psychological Association’s 2023 Work in America Survey, 38% of workers fear AI could render their jobs obsolete. In the European Union, 40% to 60% of workers see AI as a job threat across states (Shoss & Ciarlante, 2022). Despite increasing research on AI's mental health impacts, there is a scarcity of comprehensive reviews on the topic. This review aims to address this gap.

Methods

The systematic review follows the PRISMA guidelines, focusing on examining empirical studies concerning AI induced anxiety and other mental health problems. Keywords of "artificial intelligence," "AI," "anxiety," "mental health," and "mental wellbeing" were used to search databases like PsycINFO and EBSCO Academic Search. Empirical studies published after 2010 investigating AI induced anxiety and other mental health problems related to job security were included. Studies’ titles/abstracts were screened, and then full-text papers were retrieved for in-depth evaluation. After identifying eligible studies, information related to study focuses, sample characteristics, AI anxiety indicators, AI types, key findings, geographic regions, and correlators was extracted based on a template on a spreadsheet.

Results

A total of 1,237 unduplicated entries were obtained from the search, yielding 13 eligible studies for data extraction. The studies spanned eight countries and regions, with sample sizes ranging from 203 participants in a convenient sample to 13,294 participants across 28 European Union states. Study samples included doctors and medical students (4 studies), general employees, supply chain workers, creative professionals, and teachers (6 studies), and unspecified populations (3 studies). The studies showed that 38% to 75% of participants reported AI-induced anxiety due to fears of AI replacing jobs or reducing job values. Additional factors related to AI anxiety included the necessity for reskilling to keep pace with AI advancements, and concerns over ethical, legal, and cybersecurity issues associated with AI use. Only a few studies conducted multivariate analyses to explore the relationships between AI anxiety and participants' socioeconomic characteristics, where employment status, psychological traits, readiness for AI adoption, and professional fields were found to be related. Finally, an AI Anxiety Scale (Wang & Wang, 2019) was developed and has been widely used, although most studies opted for self-developed measures for AI anxiety.

Conclusions and Implications

This pioneering review systematically examined and synthesized empirical research on AI-induced anxiety and its correlates. It offers a holistic understanding of current research and underscores the need for deeper insights in this field. Overall, current research on AI anxiety and related mental health issues is superficial, with limited efforts exploring correlates and their associations with other mental health problems to better understand the context and consequences of AI anxiety. Particularly, it is important to investigate how socioeconomic inequalities may relate to AI anxiety and other related mental health issues, which has significant implications for social work policy and practice.