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AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

simonwillison.net

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Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#31

Post by ap99 »

localhoster wrote: post #19

TBH, 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.

Yeah if you want to keep your edge you have to find other ways to work your programming brain.

But as far as output - we all have different reasons for enjoying software development but for me it's more making something useful and less in the coding itself. AI makes the fun parts more fun and the less fun parts almost invisible (at small scale).

We'll all have to wrestle with this going forward.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#32

Post by falloutx »

mrtksn wrote: post #8

Computer languages were the lathe for shaping the machines to make them do whatever we want, AI is a CNC. Another abstraction layer for making machines do whatever we want them to do.

100% disagree. CNC is a precision machine while AI is the literal opposite of precision.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#33

Post by wiseowise »

yieldcrv wrote: post #21

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

Hopefully it will be like an Ebola virus, so that everyone will see how deadly it is instead of like smoking where you die of cancer 40 years down the line.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#34

Post by wiseowise »

rvz wrote: post #9

Maybe it would be much better to just link to the original article instead of somewhere else for the full context to read. [0] Also this post should link to the original source as well. As per the submission guidelines [1]: ”Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter.” [0] https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies... [1] https://news.y…

It is in the title if you open the page.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#35

Post by co_king_3 »

ap99 wrote: post #31
localhoster wrote: post #19

TBH, 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.

Yeah if you want to keep your edge you have to find other ways to work your programming brain. But as far as output - we all have different reasons for enjoying software development but for me it's more making something useful and less in the coding itself. AI makes the fun parts more fun and the less fun parts almost invisible (at small scale). We'll all have to wrestle with this going forward.

If you use an LLM you've given up your edge.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#36

Post by bsenftner »

I've been saying this since ChatGPT first came out: AI enables the lazy to dig intellectual holes they cannot dig out, while also enables those with active critical analysis and good secondary considerations to literally become the fabled 10x or more developer / knowledge worker. Which creates interesting scenarios as AI is being evaluated and adopted: the short sighted are loudly declaring success, which will be short term success, and they are bullying their work-peers that they have the method they all should follow. That method being intellectually lazy, allowing the AI to code for them, which they then verify with testing and believe they are done. Meanwhile, the quiet ones are figuring out how to eliminate the need for their coworkers at all. Managers are observing productivity growth, which falters with the loud ones, but not with those quiet ones... AI is here to make the scientifically minded excel and the short cut takers can footgun themselves out of there.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#37

Post by co_king_3 »

falloutx wrote: post #22
ap99 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inc…

Labor organizing is (obviously) banned on HackerNews.

This isn't the place to kvetch about this; you will literally never see a unionization effort on this website because the accounts of the people posting about it will be [flagged] and shadowbanned.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#38

Post by ap99 »

falloutx wrote: post #22
ap99 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inc…

I'm curious as to what previous group you're comparing yourself (and the rest of us) to.

I'm also curious as to what you do, where you do it, and who you work for that makes you feel like you have zero power.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#39

Post by CSSer »

fhd2 wrote: post #6
bilekas wrote: post #3

> I've had conversations with people recently who are losing sleep because they're finding building yet another feature with "just one more prompt" irresistible. This is actually a really good point that I have kind of noticed when using AI for side project, so being on my own time. The allure of thinking "Oh I wonder how it will perform with this feature request if I give it this amount of info". Can't say I would p…

What kills me personally is that I'm constantly 80% there, but the remaining 20% can be just insurmountable. It's really like gambling: Just one more round and it'll be useful, OK, not quite, just one more, for hours.

Do you mean in terms of adding one more feature or in terms of how a feature you're adding almost works but not quite right?

I find the latter a lot more challenging to cut my losses when it's on a good run (and often even when I know I could just write this by hand), especially because there's as much if not more intrigue about whether the tool can accomplish it or not. These are the moments where my mind has drifted to think about it the exact way you describe it here.

Re: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it

#40

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

> help avoid burnout

Yeah, good luck with that.

Corporations have tried to reduce employee burnout exactly never times.

That’s something that starts at the top. The execs tend to be “type A++” personalities, who run close to burnout, and don’t really have much empathy for employees in the same condition.

But they also don’t believe that employees should have the same level of reward, for their stress.

For myself, I know that I am not “getting maximum result” from using LLMs, but I feel as if they have been a real force multiplier, in my work, and don’t feel burnt out, at all.

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