What does intelligentization bring? A perspective from the impact of mental workload on operational risk

Artificial intelligence is becoming the new foundation of companies’ business operations. The nature of “technical staff” work is changing as a result of artificial intelligence, affecting their mental workload. According to multiple resource theory, both mental underload and overload might result in operational mishaps. We recruited high-speed rail (HSR) drivers from the transportation industry and stock traders from the financial industry to conduct experiments to verify the relationship between mental workload and operational risk under varying levels of intelligentization. The findings indicate that mental workload has a detrimental impact on operational risk. However, beyond a certain threshold, it has the reverse effect on operational risk. That is, there is a U-shaped relationship between mental workload and operational risk. Furthermore, intelligentization makes the U-shaped curve steeper, enhancing the impact of mental workload on operational risk. To investigate the influence of mental workload on operational risk at various levels of intelligentization, we created a simulation program using the simulink tool. The simulation results confirm the empirical study, revealing that the U-shaped operating risk curve is driven by HSR drivers’ distraction and stress, fatigue has little effect on operational risk. We found that under non-emergency conditions, HSR drivers with higher levels of intelligentization experience a lower mental workload compared to those operating less intelligent trains. However, in emergency situations, although the former’s mental workload is greater than the latter’s, the instantaneous change in mental workload is significantly larger. As a result, under emergency conditions, HSR drivers with higher levels of intelligentization face greater operational risk. The conclusions of this paper have multiple managerial implications for transportation companies.