The Rise of AI Anxiety

As artificial intelligence becomes an everyday presence, powering search engines, automating documentation, and even offering mental health support, many social workers are quietly wrestling with a growing discomfort of AI Anxiety. This isn’t just technophobia. It’s the emotional, ethical, and professional unease many feel as AI tools begin reshaping human service work. And it’s not just practitioners who feel it. Clients are grappling with it too.

So, what exactly is AI Anxiety, and what can we do about it?

What Is AI Anxiety?

AI Anxiety refers to a constellation of emotional responses, ranging from fear and overwhelm to skepticism and moral unease, about the role of artificial intelligence in human life. For social workers, it often shows up as:

• Fear of being replaced or devalued by automated tools

• Concern for ethical dilemmas around bias, privacy, and data misuse

• Overwhelm at the rapid pace of tech integration in clinical, school, and human service settings

• Discomfort with the unknown, particularly when we are already being impacted by AI in ways that aren’t transparent

Let’s be clear that these feelings are valid. They’re also essential to unpack for social work professionals rooted in ethical reflection, social justice, and human dignity.

How AI Anxiety Shows Up in Practice

You might notice AI anxiety in yourself when you avoid trying a new documentation scribe because you’re feeling overwhelmed by yet another tech tool being pushed your way. You might see it in a colleague who instantly dismisses every AI-based intervention as a threat to the therapeutic relationship. Or in a college-attending client who shares real fears about whether they’ll have a job in the future because of AI-driven automation.

AI is no longer optional in social work. It’s already embedded in electronic health records, telehealth triage systems, predictive analytics, and even surveillance tools shaping the environments we and our clients navigate daily. Avoiding AI out of anxiety doesn’t protect our clients or empower our profession. It risks leaving us unprepared, uninformed, and unable to advocate effectively in a rapidly evolving landscape.

How Social Workers Can Navigate AI Anxiety

1. Name It to Tame It

Use reflective supervision, journaling, or group processing spaces to name your own responses to AI. What part of this change unsettles you? Fear of becoming obsolete? A clash with your core values? Anxiety thrives in silence; naming it is the first step toward agency.

2. Ground in Ethics, Not Fear

Our Code of Ethics isn’t anti-tech. Our code of ethics is pro-human dignity. Use it as a compass. Ask: Does this AI tool uphold informed consent? Does it increase equity or widen disparities? Ethical curiosity is a far more empowering lens than fear. Here is a link to our NASW Technology Code Standards.

3. Be Transparent With Clients

Don’t assume your clients aren’t affected or don’t care. Help them name their own AI-related fears. Creating space to process these dynamics affirms their lived experience.

4. Build Literacy Before Resistance

Understanding how AI tools function, at least at a basic level, allows you to challenge them more effectively. Learn the difference between generative AI and predictive analytics. Take free webinars. Join interdisciplinary conversations like the AI Social Worker’s Slack Group. Knowing is a tool for resistance.

5. Use AI as a Reflective Practice Tool

AI isn’t just a system to critique—it can also be a mirror. Try using ChatGPT to rewrite a progress note or generate psychoeducation materials, then analyze what it got wrong. What bias does it reveal? What context is it missing? These can become powerful supervision conversations.

From Anxiety to Advocacy

What if we reframed AI Anxiety as an early warning system of a sign of our values clashing with unchecked progress? As social workers, we are uniquely positioned to advocate for ethical, inclusive, and trauma-informed AI design. But first, we need to address the anxiety that keeps us on the sidelines. You don’t need to use AI in your social work practice, but you do have to understand it because we are already living in a world shaped by it.

Want more tools and guidence to explore AI in social work ethically and practically? Sign up for our free guide here.

The content in this blog was created with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and reviewed and edited by Dr. Marina Badillo-Diaz to ensure accuracy, relevance, and integrity. Dr. Badillo-Diaz's expertise and insightful oversight have been incorporated to ensure the content in this blog meets the standards of professional social work practice.