When the Bots Steal the Fun in Work
Keeping your motivating spark alive in the age of generative AI
Is AI quietly automating the parts of work that actually make it feel meaningful?
According to a new Harvard Business Review article, yes. In a series of experiments, people who leaned on generative tools produced higher-quality emails, reviews, and idea lists, BUT motivation dropped (11%) and boredom jumped (20%) when participants were forced to tackle the next task on their own without the help of AI.
While that dip may seem small, over time and the additive effect of many tasks it has a huge impact. If we start to outsource the challenging aspects of our work, the workweek starts to feel like scrolling… lots of output, but very little ownership.
Why the slump shows up
Challenge is fuel. Creative labor lights up the same reward circuits as puzzle-solving and sport. Strip out the struggle, and you also strip away the chemical cocktail of dopamine, norepinephrine, a touch of adrenaline that tells the brain, this matters.
Role reversal. Automation flips us from builders and creators to editors. Human-Factors researchers call it the irony of automation: systems take over the interesting parts and leave people monitoring the leftovers.
Shrinking autonomy. Self-Determination Theory says motivation thrives on autonomy, competence, and connection. One-click text blocks in a chat window rob us of all three. We decide less, practice fewer skills, and feel less ownership over the product.
Lost creative friction. The most meaningful breakthroughs often emerge from the productive tension of different perspectives pushing against each other. When AI replaces human collaboration, we lose not just the friction that sparks innovation, but the shared struggle that builds trust and team cohesion.
Work with the machine, not for it
To be clear, I’m not suggesting we never use AI for creative work. In full transparency, I absolutely used it in drafting this article. What I am proposing is that we take steps to be very intentional in how we use AI and the roles that we ask it and ourselves to play.
When we treat AI not just as a question and answer bot or ask it to do all the thinking for us, AI can absolutely be a creative thought partner to help us widen our aperture and expand creatively upon our own ideas.
Sketch before you prompt. Jot three rough lines, a headline, or a doodle. Create the story and lock in your voice before the assistant starts riffing.
Role reversal, make AI interview you to extract your ideas. Tell the AI to take on the role of journalist exploring your idea above. Tell it to treat you as an expert in the field and conduct an interview with you for it to help in drafting. By flipping the paradigm, you own the ideas. AI is just helping you get them on paper.
Give the bot the grunt work, not the flavor. Let it pull data, outline structure, or suggest counter-arguments. Claim the hook, the stories, the punchlines.
Rewrite at least one pass by hand. Close the tab, let your mind wrestle for fifteen minutes, then reopen and merge drafts. The friction brings insight.
Schedule AI-free deep-work blocks. Even one hour a day of pure, device-quiet focus keeps your creative muscles from atrophying.
Debrief the experience. After each project, note where you felt inspired by new ideas and perspectives surfaced by AI and what felt like hollowly passing off important work. Adjust the split next time.
Keep Working At It
Invest in AI literacy. Training should cover not only prompt crafting but also cognitive pitfalls like over-trust and deskilling. Focus on building strategies to pivot the role of AI from automator to creative thought partner.
Track the feeling metric. Add a one-question pulse survey that asks, "How meaningful did your work feel this week?" Declining scores flag over-automation long before quality slips.
Dedicate AI-free creating time. Spend time each week working on a creative project without AI to maintain problem-solving muscles.
Meaning is the real KPI
Output metrics will keep climbing as models improve. That is the easy part. The harder part, and the competitive edge for humans leveraging AI, lies in keeping the work worth doing. Leave space for the blank page, the awkward first draft, the debates over ideas. Those moments are rocket fuel for humans.
So the next time a prompt window tempts you to delegate the entire task, pause. Ask yourself which slice of the job gives you a rush when you nail it. Keep that slice. Maybe even ask AI to challenge your thinking and widen your aperture. Then let the bot handle the rest.
Your productivity stats might slip a point or two. But what you gain in return is far more valuable: motivating, fulfilling work that feels like an expression of your humanity rather than an afterthought to automation. In a world increasingly mediated by algorithms, reclaiming these moments of creative agency isn't just personally fulfilling. It's how we continue to bring uniquely human wisdom, empathy, and purpose to the table.
Did you feel a difference the last time you toggled between AI-assisted and solo work? Hit reply, share your story, and let's compare notes on reclaiming the human spark in our digital workflows.