The New Digital Divide: The New Digital Divide: A Perspective of AI Literacy as Workplace Capital and Organizational Inequality
Abstract
In the business world, workplace relationships, employee work performance, and business decision-making are all currently being transformed by the broad diffusion of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). This explosion focuses on productivity effects; however, it is unaccompanied by studies on whether divergent degrees of AI expertise can produce novel labour inequities. This perspective relied on prior work in the fields of AI literacy, the digital divide, human capital, organizational justice, and human-AI teams. This article conceptualizes the AI Literacy Divide. It argues that literacy in AI is becoming a type of workplace capital that mediates whether an individual can translate access to AI to enhance productivity, work quality and career progression. High-AI literacy workers could be relatively privileged recipients of a variety of rewards associated with AI-enabled work, while low-AI literacy workers could be relatively excluded or disadvantaged relative to their work counterparts possessing equivalent levels of non-AI-based work knowledge. We presented a framework on the origins and effects of the AI Literacy Divide and discussed the practical implications for HR management, human capital management, organisational equity, and future research.
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