Caleb Yarbrough

Two groups of people have been extraordinarily bad for the AI safety discourse: 1. Lefties like Emily Bender who dismiss AI as a useless toy 2. Doomers like Yudkowsky who force the discussion to only focus on superintelligence

A super interesting new study from Harvard Business Review. A 8-month field study at a US tech company with about 200 employees found that AI use did not shrink work, it intensified it, and made employees busier. Task expansion happened because AI filled in gaps in knowledge, so people started doing work that used to belong to other roles or would have been outsourced or deferred. That shift created extra coordination and review work for specialists, including fixing AI-assisted drafts and coaching colleagues whose work was only partly correct or complete. Boundaries blurred because starting became as easy as writing a prompt, so work slipped into lunch, meetings, and the minutes right before stepping away. Multitasking rose because people ran multiple AI threads at once and kept checking outputs, which increased attention switching and mental load. Over time, this faster rhythm raised expectations for speed through what became visible and normal, even without explicit pressure from managers.

dudes will argue this for hours

Work a desk job Grind 9–6 Lift weights to feel something Marry someone beautiful enough Move to suburbs Get a dog Have 2 kids Drive an American SUV to Costco on weekends Buy a house you’ll never finish paying off Call it happiness Is this the dream? or just a life we were sold?