What if AI just makes us work harder?
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Re: What if AI just makes us work harder?
#2Re: What if AI just makes us work harder?
#3This is exactly my experience. Because the barrier to doing things is lower, you just do more things. But it doesn't actually expand one's capabilities or make learning happen any faster. That needs time (mostly sleep).
Compare playing Counter Strike with having a game of cricket.
Cricket takes a while to organise and set up. You have to contact your pals, physically travel to the field and set up the wickets. Then expect to commit several hours to the game.
Meanwhile, Counter Strike takes no effort. You move your arm to the mouse and click. A game is like 5 minutes of commitment.
The trouble is, before you know it you've spent 5 hours on Counter Strike. You could have easily played cricket in that time, caught up with your pals and exercised your body to boot.
Re: What if AI just makes us work harder?
#4Indeed, since you can't relax by doing the mindless boilerplate that AI can do for you. You instead spend your time on more engaged, high leverage activities.
Re: What if AI just makes us work harder?
#5This is exactly my experience. Because the barrier to doing things is lower, you just do more things. But it doesn't actually expand one's capabilities or make learning happen any faster. That needs time (mostly sleep). Compare playing Counter Strike with having a game of cricket. Cricket takes a while to organise and set up. You have to contact your pals, physically travel to the field and set up the wickets. Then e…
Another addition to the list of really bad analogies on here.
Re: What if AI just makes us work harder?
#6This is also my experience. At [my company name], we have a coding agent integrated with Slack that allows people to simply @bot to complete no brainer tasks. And the result is there is no more easy task, because easy task is now automated, and everything left are mentally exhausting task.
Re: What if AI just makes us work harder?
#7Creating is enjoyable. Reviewing the creation output of AI as a career would certainly be "harder" in the sense that it would be unenjoyable and make work feel like a chore when it doesn't have to.
Re: What if AI just makes us work harder?
#8A Multitudes study recently cited in Scientific American showed exactly this.
AI led to not only longer hours overall, but also a shift from development to bug fixing and a 19.6% increase in out-of-hour commits. So longer hours, less interesting tasks, and more weekend work.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-developers-us...
Re: What if AI just makes us work harder?
#9This is exactly my experience. Because the barrier to doing things is lower, you just do more things. But it doesn't actually expand one's capabilities or make learning happen any faster. That needs time (mostly sleep). Compare playing Counter Strike with having a game of cricket. Cricket takes a while to organise and set up. You have to contact your pals, physically travel to the field and set up the wickets. Then e…
Another addition to the list of really bad analogies on here.
Care to explain why? I think it’s not a bad analogy: contrasting two things with the same goal, one fast paced, saturates your cognitive load , and one that leaves more space for reflecting on what is actually happening, inherently less exhausting. You may disagree with the analysis, but it works in this framework.
Re: What if AI just makes us work harder?
#10This is also my experience. At [my company name], we have a coding agent integrated with Slack that allows people to simply @bot to complete no brainer tasks. And the result is there is no more easy task, because easy task is now automated, and everything left are mentally exhausting task.
Yeah, it’s very good for productivity & focus to have some easy tasks to give you a quick win & dopamine boost. Spending all day reviewing AI output is NOT that.
I suppose some say this is an argument in favor of non-human workers, but the whole point of this endeavor should be to improve human society. (Isn’t that, allegedly, what tech companies are all about? :p)