Using AI to Automate Tasks Employees Don’t Want to Do
When artificial intelligence is introduced into the workplace, the conversation often turns to fears of job displacement. Yet, in a revealing interview with Andrew Joiner, CEO of Hyperscience, a different narrative emerges—one where AI isn’t simply a force of replacement, but a liberating tool that takes over the tasks most employees don’t want to do. As governments across the United States adapt to a new era of digital transformation, Joiner’s perspective reframes the promise of generative AI: not as a threat, but as an enabler of more meaningful work.
Governments Leading the Way on AI Adoption
While it’s easy to imagine the private sector as the epicenter of AI innovation, Joiner points to the public sector—particularly the federal government—as surprisingly progressive in adopting and managing AI. For years, government agencies have used AI in high-stakes domains like logistics and defense. The new frontier, however, lies in back-office functions that directly serve citizens. From Veterans Affairs to the Social Security Administration (SSA), AI is now being deployed to streamline processes, reduce wait times, and enhance service delivery.
What sets this government adoption apart is its maturity. “The public sector is already familiar with the benefits and challenges of AI,” says Joiner. “Now they’re expanding its use to areas that directly affect everyday people.” That expansion, according to him, comes with the benefit of oversight and structure. Governments, he argues, are not merely interested in cost savings but in efficacy—delivering services faster and more accurately to citizens.
Shifting the Focus From Job Loss to Job Transformation
Public anxiety around AI frequently centers on job security, with headlines declaring mass layoffs as generative models become more capable. Joiner acknowledges that some roles, particularly those involving repetitive tasks like taking phone calls or summarizing citizen interactions, will indeed be automated. But he is quick to draw a distinction between task automation and job elimination.
“These tools allow employees to focus on the parts of their jobs that matter most,” he explains. “No one is excited to spend their day cross-checking signatures across dozens of documents or interpreting inconsistent grading systems from global transcripts. That’s where AI thrives—handling the tedious work so people can do what they’re best at.”
At Hyperscience, this philosophy guides their partnerships with agencies like SSA, where they process billions of documents annually. The automation supports them, freeing up time for higher-level thinking, decision-making, and person-to-person service.
Building Guardrails for Responsible Use
Concerns over biased AI decisions and errant model outputs are valid—and Joiner doesn’t shy away from them. He outlines a framework for responsible AI use that includes “human-in-the-loop” processes. These systems are designed with confidence thresholds, where the AI acts autonomously when it’s certain and defers to human review when it’s not.
“This isn’t about letting machines make all the decisions,” he says. “It’s about creating a dynamic where AI handles the grunt work, but humans are still steering the ship.” Hyperscience also supports agencies in training specialized models tailored to their unique data, a critical step given the messy, unstructured nature of government information.
That includes complex formats like scanned W2s, handwritten claims, and visa applications with varying international standards. The goal is to convert this data into structured, readable formats that AI—and human analysts—can understand.
Empowering Employees, Not Replacing Them
AI’s promise isn’t just about speed or accuracy—it’s about making people’s jobs better. “Think of it like when word processors first arrived,” Joiner says. “It changed the way we work, but it didn’t eliminate writers.” Similarly, the shift from manual document processing to AI-assisted workflows allows employees to be more effective, not redundant.
To ease the transition, Hyperscience works directly with agency employees, engaging them in the training and deployment of AI tools. This approach fosters ownership and reduces resistance. “People are understandably cautious,” Joiner notes. “But once they see how these tools reduce their mental load, the anxiety starts to fade.”
Take the Department of Justice, for example. Investigators there once spent years poring over international banking records to track corporate fraud. Now, AI models can structure those documents in a matter of hours, enabling investigators to focus on case-building instead of data entry.
A Future of Frictionless Government Services
Looking ahead, Joiner envisions a future where government workflows are not just enhanced by AI, but transformed. Emerging technologies like agentic AI systems could soon autonomously initiate tasks, retrieve supplementary information, and resolve issues before a human even notices a problem. This vision isn’t speculative—it’s already beginning to take shape.
For veterans dealing with 20,000-page medical histories, AI can now extract relevant data quickly, enabling faster decisions about benefits and care. For immigrants applying for visas, AI can normalize disparate international educational records and flag inconsistencies automatically. “These are systems built to improve lives,” says Joiner, “not just balance spreadsheets.”
As the federal government continues to scale these technologies, the ripple effects will be profound. More citizens will receive timely, accurate, and respectful service. More employees will spend their days solving problems instead of sorting papers. And more agencies will realize that the key to digital transformation isn’t replacing the human touch—it’s removing the digital noise that gets in the way of it.
The conversation around AI doesn’t need to be dominated by fear. As Joiner sees it, the real story is about freedom—freedom from tedious work, from inefficient systems, and from the limits of old technology. When done right, AI doesn’t take jobs. It takes the worst parts of them.
Key Take-Away
AI isn’t here to take jobs — it’s here to take the worst parts of them. Share on XImage credit: Jopwell/pexels
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky was lauded as “Office Whisperer” and “Hybrid Expert” by The New York Times for helping leaders use hybrid work to improve retention and productivity while cutting costs. He serves as the CEO of the boutique future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts. Dr. Gleb wrote the first book on returning to the office and leading hybrid teams after the pandemic, his best-seller Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams: A Manual on Benchmarking to Best Practices for Competitive Advantage (Intentional Insights, 2021). He authored seven books in total, and is best know for his global bestseller, Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters (Career Press, 2019). His cutting-edge thought leadership was featured in over 650 articles and 550 interviews in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, USA Today, CBS News, Fox News, Time, Business Insider, Fortune, and elsewhere. His writing was translated into Chinese, Korean, German, Russian, Polish, Spanish, French, and other languages. His expertise comes from over 20 years of consulting, coaching, and speaking and training for Fortune 500 companies from Aflac to Xerox. It also comes from over 15 years in academia as a behavioral scientist, with 8 years as a lecturer at UNC-Chapel Hill and 7 years as a professor at Ohio State. A proud Ukrainian American, Dr. Gleb lives in Columbus, Ohio. In his free time, he makes sure to spend abundant quality time with his wife to avoid his personal life turning into a disaster. Contact him at Gleb[at]DisasterAvoidanceExperts[dot]com, follow him on LinkedIn @dr-gleb-tsipursky, Twitter @gleb_tsipursky, Instagram @dr_gleb_tsipursky, Facebook @DrGlebTsipursky, Medium @dr_gleb_tsipursky, YouTube, and RSS, and get a free copy of the Assessment on Dangerous Judgment Errors in the Workplace by signing up for the free Wise Decision Maker Course at https://disasteravoidanceexperts.com/newsletter/.