While I have ‘graduated from the workforce’ (aka ‘retired’) I am finding the current crop of uber-powerful and enabling tools are encouraging me to do more ‘work’ at my computer, as I push my capabilities and do stuff that was scarcely imaginable 10 years ago. It is addictive.
The same phenomena is hitting in high tech workplaces.
According to Every.to “New research shows AI doesn’t reduce work—it makes you want to do more of it”
UC Berkeley researchers Aruna Ranganathan and Xingqi Maggie Ye conducted an eight-month ethnographic study at a 200-employee U.S. tech firm.
Their in-progress work, featured in Harvard Business Review, reveals generative AI intensified workloads rather than reducing them.
Three Ways Work Intensified
AI prompted employees to work faster overall, voluntarily expanding tasks beyond their roles —like product managers coding or researchers engineering.
Workers blurred work-life boundaries by using AI during breaks or meetings, treating prompts as casual yet accumulating into extra effort.
Multitasking surged as they juggled multiple AI-driven workflows, leading to cognitive strain and potential burnout.
Broader Impacts
This “workload creep” risks fatigue, lower quality output, higher turnover, and morale issues without organizational safeguards. The study urges proactive measures like redefining roles and monitoring for balance to harness AI benefits sustainably. Early excitement often masks these creeping demands.
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In a similar vein, Zvi Mowshowitz collated the following on his blog - Don’t Worry About the Vase
A viral post on Twitter warns of token anxiety run rampant in San Francisco. People go to a party, then don’t drink and leave early so they can get back to their agents, to avoid risking them sitting idle. Everyone talks about what they are building.
*Peter Choi: Everyone here knows they should step away more. That’s not the problem. The problem is what your brain does when you try. I still take aimless walks. The agents come with me now. We swapped one dopamine loop for another. except this one feels productive so it’s harder to recognize.
TBPN~: Pragmatic Engineer’s @GergelyOrosz is on a “secret email list” of agentic AI coders, and they’re starting to report trouble sleeping because agent swarms are “like a vampire.” “A lot of people who are in ‘multiple agents mode,’ they’re napping during the day… It just really is draining.” “This thing is like a vampire. It drains you out. You have trouble sleeping.”
Olivia Moore: In a post-OpenClaw world, we can now delegate projects to AI and get “tapped on the shoulder” when it needs help As a heavy AI user, I’m doing more work – not less – because I get so much leverage + it’s easier to get ideas off the ground I predict this will happen to everyone