Workers are spending over 6 hours a week botsitting AI, fueling job frustration

Post by mrweasel » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

ge96 wrote: post #65

banannaise wrote: post #39

This really hit home for me: In some cases, workers are also being asked to automate the parts of their jobs they enjoy most, Hinds said on the podcast, pointing to customer-service employees who enjoy building relationships but are increasingly expected to supervise AI agents instead. "That's what gives you joy and meaning at work," she said. "That is very dangerous." What's a 20% productivity gain if I constantly f…

When I was given a semi-ultimatum "use AI or get fired" kind of thing for writing code I had a brief bout of depression/sadness. Whereas my friend doesn't care/says "I get paid to not work". I have gotten past it, now I'm just like, I'll do what I need to do to get paid since unfortunately I'm in a lot of debt so I need this job. I learned to code in 2013 so I like typing the code myself but now it seems like a waste…

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

lubujackson wrote: post #109

threetonesun wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the engineers not derive enjoyment in their jobs from making the customer experience better? This does track with what I've experience in my career, where we've gone from everything being to better the user experience to tech companies sort of trying to out-do each other in their technical solutions while the software continuously gets worse and more antagonistic.

This is the danger of isolating engineering from customers, or even internal customer-interfacing employees. If all they see is code, they will get satisfaction from tidy code, not user happiness. One good thing about AI is it elevates product engineers because they more directly bridge the customer-product-code divide.

Post by threethirtytwo » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:23 PM UTC

Post by dragonshed » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

kqr wrote: post #88

banannaise wrote: post #39

This really hit home for me: In some cases, workers are also being asked to automate the parts of their jobs they enjoy most, Hinds said on the podcast, pointing to customer-service employees who enjoy building relationships but are increasingly expected to supervise AI agents instead. "That's what gives you joy and meaning at work," she said. "That is very dangerous." What's a 20% productivity gain if I constantly f…

This is an important point. My light-bulb moment was when I talked to a product owner in a previous job, and I expressed surprise around an expensive planned change, because it didn't seem that valuable to our customers. He said, "Almost half of what we do is not that valuable to our customers, but it's valuable to him, and her, and him", pointing through the conference-room window at my fellow programmers, "and that…

Post by oudlys » Thu, Jun 11, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC

therealdrag0 wrote: post #147

parpfish wrote: post #24

i've seen a number of articles claiming things like "devs self report they'er +x% more productive with AI, but actually they're -y% LESS efficient!". and i think that this is explanation for why. as a boss (or researcher) i'm going to measure productivity based on amount of output per hour that i'm paying you; as a workers, i'm going to measure productivity based on amount of output relative to the amount of effort i…

Do you have any studies in the last 6 months showing performance decreases?