AI Automation Increased Work Instead of Free Time
AI tools accelerated each task, but the endless cycle of prompting, testing and new releases made it harder to stop working.
Developed from a conversation between Pete Winn, Yo and Andy David
AI was supposed to make work more autonomous and leave people with more time to touch grass. Yo found the opposite. Over the previous ten months, new models, projects and ideas had arrived in a constant barrage. Instead of creating distance from work, the tools kept pulling him back to the screen.
Part of the problem was that faster output created a tighter loop. Pete could once hand work to a human team and adjust over a couple of weeks. With an AI agent, implementation might return in minutes, leaving him to test it, understand what changed and close the loop immediately. If he sent a task away without doing that follow-up, he might not even know whether the work had been completed properly.
The promised autonomy also proved hard to resist. Yo described AI as an addictive slot machine that encouraged more prompting, while every new model or workflow demanded fresh attention. His response was to narrow the boundary around it by working for a set period, taking a break and refusing to let the dopamine loop infiltrate the rest of his life.