> Whenever I find a use for AI, it so drastically cuts the time to accomplish tasks that I’m left wanting to do more with my (finally copious) free time! I get what the author is trying to say but this does not match my experience nor does it match the employee productivity findings from AI adoption in enterprises.
Author here. I don't use it for everything and I don't expect it to do everything. I've used it for image generation, code generation, and also iterated on prototypes / simple visual simulations in languages and frameworks that I (mostly) understand. And, of course, like everyone else, I've used it instead spending a lot more time searching and sifting through things online. I used to think replacing the search bar w…
You use AI for search like everyone else because that's what it always was and all it was ever good for. What if I told you that your dramatic statement is totally misreading the vast majority of office workers and their work? If there are waves, it doesn't resemble a riptide, but stop-and-go traffic.
Their work isn't hard for them to begin with. They're bored and stuck in endless meetings. The bottleneck is the rest of the organization. Just like a traffic jam, they cannot leave. Not even working from home will save them from the random calls, messages, or emails keeping them glued to the desk.
For every nontrivial goal, all decisions up to that point will await approval from one person. The baton is then handed off to someone else and so it goes.
As tempting as it is for some people to want to, one cannot jam the AI middleman pirate grift machine into this process without violating centuries of accountability laws. Anyone attempting to build an AI-first business will hit these same roadblocks and become the thing they attempted to be "better" than.
Any attempt by AI companies to slip out of this situation with reform politics would be highly entertaining to watch though. I think the sharks smell blood.