The First Signs of Burnout Are Coming From the People Who Embrace AI the Most
- Reference: 0180767516
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/02/10/2028238/the-first-signs-of-burnout-are-coming-from-the-people-who-embrace-ai-the-most
- Source link:
> The most seductive narrative in American work culture right now isn't that AI will take your job. It's that AI will save you from it. That's the version the industry has spent the last three years selling to millions of nervous people who are eager to buy it. Yes, some white-collar jobs will disappear. But for most other roles, the argument goes, AI is a force multiplier. You become a more capable, more indispensable lawyer, consultant, writer, coder, financial analyst -- and so on. The tools work for you, you work less hard, everybody wins.
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> But a new study published in Harvard Business Review [1]follows that premise to its actual conclusion , and what it finds there isn't a productivity revolution. It finds companies are [2]at risk of becoming burnout machines .
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> As part of what they describe as "in-progress research," UC Berkeley researchers spent eight months inside a 200-person tech company watching what happened when workers genuinely embraced AI. What they found across more than 40 "in-depth" interviews was that nobody was pressured at this company. Nobody was told to hit new targets. People just started doing more because the tools made more feel doable. But because they could do these things, work began bleeding into lunch breaks and late evenings. The employees' to-do lists expanded to fill every hour that AI freed up, and then kept going.
[1] https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/09/the-first-signs-of-burnout-are-coming-from-the-people-who-embrace-ai-the-most/
The most interesting thing I can do with copilot (Score:2)
I just found out the most interesting thing I can do with copilot at work: turn it off. In VS code, the bottom right copilot button has a "snooze" option. I use it because inserted garbage comments break my train of thought.
I don't say it's not useful. But it does drive me nuts sometimes.
Duh (Score:5, Interesting)
Fields medal winner June Huh is right, you can only do about 4 hours of real work a day before your neurons get filled with detritus and you need some sleep to wash it out. Stop killing your brain for a company you don't even own cause it sounds cool and go take a 2 hour lunch ya dumb nerds.
Re: (Score:3)
Sure if you want to work in the fields, you'll get tired quickly and the mosquitos are a pain! Machines can do it in a fraction of the time though. I asked my LLM if anything needed to be done in the field behind my house, it said no and showed me a math equation to prove it. That's the fastest I've accomplished housework in months.
The American work culture (Score:4, Interesting)
has been utter shit for decades. It glorifies overtime over everything else - including over metrics that could be improved with less overtime, such as quality and efficiency.
AI is just more of the same: turbocharged shit.
I'm saying this as an American expat living in Europe and actually having a quality of life and work/life balance I never had stateside.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you make more than $2 per day? If so, then you too can go lord it over people in a developing country. You can have a fancy house and the natural beauty of a pristine landscape unsullied by paved roads, and some servants to carry the water from the well and chop firewood and make baked goods for elevensies.
Re: Pardon me... your privilege is showing... (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s not privilegeâ¦itâ(TM)s a choice that requires effort and work to unlock. Itâ(TM)s a lot easier than most people think.
Yeah, pretty much this. (Score:2)
Disclaimer: former US American citizen turned European here
The system and culture in the US is pretty broken in key parts, that's for sure. Europe is aging and has a demographic bomb coming up, but by and large quality of living is higher by default these days. Healthcare, safety nets and a (somewhat) sane system of taxation are all part of this. I hope any US revolution that might be upcoming will be peaceful and that some basics will be factory-reset to some saner defaults.
What could go wrong? (Score:2)
So it makes hiring the entry level people that historically provided the supply of experienced people less attractive and burns the experienced ones out faster? Seems like a recipe for things to go badly; though some suitably placed consultants are going to be able to get people to absolutely pay through the nose if they run into an issue their bots can't handle.
implications (Score:2)
> The employees' to-do lists expanded to fill every hour that AI freed up, and then kept going.
This phrase implies that AI made them more efficient (and the only problem they had was to have realistic limitations).
Re: (Score:2)
Be thanked for being more productive by getting more tasks. Then wonder why you burn out, when you do 100 things fast instead of 10 slow.
AI is just a power tool... (Score:2)
Echos of this have been around in the past. The computer allowed people to get a lot more done, so they spent more time on it. Same with the Internet. When you have a tool that is a force multiplier, you want to hit the gas on it and see what it can do.
This is normal. In the past, force multipliers for me have been getting a central Git system in place, a central documentation system, a ticket system, from there working with reports. AI helps accelerate that even more.
But, like with all tools, the shin
Re: (Score:3)
Was it really better than Pine? I'm not convinced going full on HTML was a good move at all. Too distracting, especially with all the fonts and background wallpaper images. And the viruses.
Re: (Score:2)
90% of the time HTML in email is used for advertising.
Re: (Score:2)
central Git system
Oh the irony...
Moderation in all things (Score:3)
So they're rediscovering what any artist who create for a living has learned - you can't produce good work all the time by the hour.
I embrace it as it comes and experience ... (Score:2)
... Chillout time. No joke. My productivity has gone 5x in the last 6 months, especially with the newest models and them spitting out boring but maintainable boilerplate code for me and explaining the details of what they're doing, but overall my life has become more chill. I've started taking naps at noon when I'm in homeoffice.
Then again, I'm an experienced senior webdev, the new product we're building has is architecture 100% designed and maintained by me alone and with AI I basically have a team 5 junio
Re: (Score:2)
What wierd stuff are you doing anyway that you have a lot of boiler-plate to write?
The entire point of frameworks is to automate that away.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the point, but not always what they achieve. Abstractions are always well intended but rarely well done.
How long until (Score:2)
The news has been filled with articles about companies proclaiming how they are going all in on AI.
I wonder how long until we see the first articles about companies proclaiming they are ditching AI and the benefits / competitive advantage they seek to reap from doing so?
Re: (Score:2)
No-one sensible will entirely ditch AI.
Its use often needs reining in and overuse does indeed cause problems, but for lower-level grunt work its benefits greatly outweigh its costs.
Initial implementations of new tech (Score:2)
..are always a bit uneven
It takes a while for stability to mature
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I guess, it is a bit uneven and unstable if it leaves you free time.
The even and stable implementation when it arrives will work like that ole Matrix, you'll be born plugged in and working overtime while receiving false dreams to keep you happy - until you're worn off and they flush you out.
If you're needed at all, that is.