this matches my experience
it's good that people so quickly see it as impulsive and addicting, as opposed to the slow creep of doomscrolling and algorithm feeds
AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it
21–30 of 329 posts
Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it
#22This is not a technology problem. AI intensifies work because management turns every efficiency gain into higher output quotas. The solution is labor organization, not better software.
This argument has been used against every new technology since forever. And the initial gut reaction is to resist by organizing labor. Companies that succumb to organized labor get locked into that speed of operating. New companies get created that adopt 'the new thing' and blow old companies away. Repeat.
> And the initial gut reaction is to resist by organizing labor.
Yeah like tech workers have similar rights to union workers. We literally have 0 power compared to any previous group of workers. Organizing of labour cant even happen in tech as tech has large percentage of immigrant labour who have even less rights than citizens.
Also there is no shared pain like union workers had, we all have been given different incentives, working under different corporations so without shared pain its impossible to organize. AI is the first shared pain we had, and even this caused no resistance from tech workers. Resistance has come from the users, which is the first good sign. Consumers have shown more ethics than workers and we have to applaud that. Any resistance to buying chatbot subscriptions has to be celebrated.
Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it
#23I feel agentic development is a time sink. Previously, I'd have an idea, sit on it for a while. In most cases, conclude it's not a good idea worth investing in. If I decided to invest, I'd think of a proper strategy to approach it. With agentic development, I have an idea, waste a few hours chasing it, then switch to other work, often abandoning the thing entirely. I still need to figure out how to deal with that, fo…
with agentic development, I've finally considered doing open source work for no reason aside from a utility existing
before, I would narrow things down to only the most potentially economically viable, and laugh at ideas guys that were married to the one single idea in their life as if it was their only chance, seemingly not realizing they were competing with people that get multiple ideas a day
back to the aforementioned epiphany, it reminds me of the world of Star Trek where everything was developed for its curiosity and utility instead of money
Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it
#24This is not a technology problem. AI intensifies work because management turns every efficiency gain into higher output quotas. The solution is labor organization, not better software.
This argument has been used against every new technology since forever. And the initial gut reaction is to resist by organizing labor. Companies that succumb to organized labor get locked into that speed of operating. New companies get created that adopt 'the new thing' and blow old companies away. Repeat.
So race to the bottom where you work more and make less per unit of work? Great deal, splendid idea.
The only winners here are CEOs/founders who make obscene money, liquidate/retire early while suckers are on the infinite treadmill justifying their existence.
Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it
#25People are a gas, and they expand to fill the space they're in. Tools that produce more work do make people's lives easier, they mean an individual just needs to do more work using their tools to do so. This is a disposition that most people have, and therefore it's unavoidable. AI is not exciting to me. I only need to use it so I don't fall behind my peers. Why would I ever be interested in that?
Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it
#26Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it
#27Doesn't have to be that way, it's about managers being realistic and not pushing people too far
Managers don’t even need to push anything. FOMO does all the work.
Overheard a couple of conversations in the office how one IC spent all weekend setting up OpenClaw, another was vibe coding some bullshit application.
I see hundreds of crazy people in our company Slack just posting/reposting twitter hype threads and coming up with ridiculous ideas how to “optimize” workflow with AI.
Once this becomes the baseline, you’ll be seen as the slow one, because you’re not doing 5x work for the same pay.
Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it
#28It's like the invention of the power loom, but for knowledge workers. Might be interesting to look at the history of industrialisation and the reactions to it.
Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it
#29I am becoming more and more convinced that AI cant be used to make something better than what could have built before AI.
You never needed 1000s of engineers to build software anyway, Winamp & VLC were build by less than four people. You only needed 1000s of people because the executive vision is always to add more useless junk into each product. And now with AI that might be even harder to avoid. This would mean there would be 1000s of do-everything websites in the future in the best case, or billions of doing one-thing terribly apps in the worst case.
percentage of good, well planned, consistent and coherent software is going to approach zero in both cases.
Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it
#30TBH, I have found AI addictive, you use it for the first time, and its incredible. You get a nice kick of dopamine. This kick of dopamine, is decreasing with every win you get. What once felt incredible, is just another prompt today. Those things don't excite you any more. Plus, the fact that you no longer exercise your brain at work any more. Plus, the constant feeling of FOMO. It deflates you, faster.
If what once felt incredible is just another prompt today, what is incredible today? Addictive personalities usually double down to get a bigger dopamine kick - that's why they stay addicted. So I don't think you truly found it addictive in the conventional sense of the term. Also excercising the brain has been optional in software for quite a while tbh.