The New AI Superpowers: Focus and Followthrough
A startup founder reflects on how AI-driven productivity gains led to 'make-work' and burnout rather than increased leisure time. The author argues that humans have a finite capacity for focus and that AI can inadvertently encourage an unsustainable expansion of responsibilities.
Why it matters
It highlights the psychological and organizational challenges of integrating AI into professional workflows, challenging the assumption that efficiency always equals better work-life balance.
Conventional wisdom is that burnout is caused (solely) by overwork.
So logically, if AI can help us complete tasks 2-100x faster than before, we should be UNDERWORKED and experiencing ZERO burnout, right?
You may be too young to recognize this meme, but it’s the feeling most people in tech had when AI started accelerating their efficiency.
Because for years, all of us had dozens, if not hundreds, of side projects we could have started but had to shelve because there weren’t enough hours in a day.
Then AI came along and teased us with a seductive lie…
Claude: “But, maybe you can do it all now that I’m here!”
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