'AI promised less work. I've never worked more'
AI was supposed to give us time back. On Hacker News, many people say the opposite. The top AI story there today is a blog post titled 'AI promised less work. I've never worked more', with 640 points and 634 comments.
Other posts dig into the same feeling. 'The Mythical Man-Month in the Age of AI' (456 points) revisits a classic book about why software projects run late. 'Here be monsters' (172 points) asks what humans still need to know when agents do the work. A new research paper, 'Counting the Bandages', argues that time saved by AI must be counted next to the errors it lets through, not only with a stopwatch.
After yesterday's news on Microsoft buyouts, the question is not only 'will AI take my job?'. It is also 'will AI make my job heavier?'.
If AI speeds up the work but adds checking, fixing and stress, the gain may go to the company while the cost goes to the worker. Measuring real time saved, errors included, is the honest way to know.
