AI Paradox

Published on August 18, 2024, filed under Development and Management (RSS feed for all categories).

I’m currently testing a lot of AI tooling, for everything related to the SDLC. While I’m concerned about AI in many areas—especially around sustainability, AI’s general impact on the world, and the specific impact on our field—, the experience has been eye-opening. AI is going to change how we do our work (I say “going to,” because I believe we’re just at the start of that hockey stick).

I’m going to talk more about these tests and my observations—one small experiment, ObsoHTML, you may have already seen—, so here’s something paradoxical that I’ve observed over the last few months:

Yes, AI helps me with my work …but now I have even more of it.

(Is this the same for you? I’ve mostly stopped enabling comments, but I’m keen to learn more, perhaps on Mastodon!)

While you might think that AI reduces our workload (well, I did think so), it actually has boosted my own productivity so much that it has lead to a ton of unexpected extra work.

ObsoHTML is a great example: While it appears innocuous, once you finish the first version of a project like this, you clearly end up with more work! (Clearly, because in hindsight it makes sense. Mmh.) Now you can write the documentation, put it up on npm, announce the project, run more tests, and take care of the first maintenance tasks.

Clearly, if you’re productive, your outcomes aren’t just something that sits in the closet and needs no further attention.

While I keep saying “clearly”—as clear as it wasn’t to me—, that’s still somewhat paradoxical, isn’t?

From the effects I observe around AI, the productivity gains don’t translate into more time, but into less.

I do worry that if we’re not aware of this and don’t manage this, AI may supercharge work stress, and the rate at which we burn out. We will just have more things to show for it once we do.

That’s it. On the positive side, while I was worried AI might undermine my learning process, I’ve actually been learning a great deal using it. However—there’s a catch—, these gains seem to be on the side of breadth (learning about more things), than on the side of depth (learning more about one thing). So there’s more here, too, and you can keep trusting me more on, say, what I write about HTML, than how my tests look like.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a frontend engineering leader and tech author/publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead for companies like Google and as an engineering manager for companies like Miro, I’m somewhat close to W3C and WHATWG, and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development (and engineering management), but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my views and experiences.

If you’d like to do me a favor, interpret charitably (I speak three languages, and they do collide), yet be critical and give feedback, so that I can make improvements. Thank you!