AI automation and AI opacity: The effects on threat and response appraisal

Job threats from artificial intelligence (AI) have become a hot issue in both theory and practice, but we still know little about how AI automation and AI opacity will synergistically generate job threats and which adaptive behavior employees will adopt in the face of AI threats. Using technology threat avoidance theory as a theoretical framework, we construct a comprehensive framework where AI automation and AI opacity interact to influence perceived AI job threat and thus inducing knowledge acquisition and knowledge hiding, while examining the conditional effects of regulatory focus. We propose that AI automation and AI opacity play a synergistic role in influencing the perceived AI job threat, which pushes employees to engage in knowledge acquisition behavior, especially among employees with the promotion focus, and knowledge hiding behavior, especially for employees with the prevention focus. Specifically, two independent studies support our hypotheses. Our research not only provides a more holistic explanation of how AI shapes perceived AI job threat, but also provides new insights into the study of employees’ adaptive behavior due to AI threats, thereby expanding existing research on IS threats.