Why developers using AI are working longer hours

This is a real thing. I spent all of January doing Greenfield development using Claude (I finished the requirements) and all I can say is thank goodness I had the Max 5x plan and not the 20x as I got breaks once the tokens were used up till the next cycle. I was forced to get up and do something else. That something else was biking, rowing, walking. My productivity had never been higher but at what cost? My health no thanks. So I'm glad I'm using the time till token reset for my health. I time it perfectly. I do a walk, row, bike for 1 hour then as I arrive back the tokens are reset. I get like 3 hours nonstop use per token batch with the 5x plan. I've been thinking about going 20x but am scared...

I use it every day and I'm taking off weekends for the first time in a decade. It's done wonders for my mental health. I think teams should pay more attention to the value of pumping the brakes vs. incessant redlining. We may actually be able to have a healthy relationship with AI then.

Personally, I make a lot more "out of hour" commits than I used to because I'll batch up low priority tasks throughout the day and let the computer chug on them at night when I'm elsewhere. Commits are coming in at all hours, but I'm not actually looking at them until the next morning.

> Software engineering was supposed to be artificial intelligence’s easiest win.

At what point in time? Did anyone foresee coding being one of the best and soonest applications of this stuff?

Selection bias? The early adopters that are motivated to adopt tools to deliver more, typically also were working more to start with and may have already been struggling with their rate of output?

two unthought out thoughts:

1. llms allow devs to be more productive, so more free time is seen as opportunity for more work. ppl overshoot and just work more

2. generalized tooling makes devs seem more replaceable putting downward pressure on job security (ie work harder or we’ll get someone who will, oh and for less money)

3. llms allow for more “multitasking” (debatable) via many running background tasks, so more opportunities to “just finish one more thing”

No silver bullet. We've known this since at least the 1980s. The fact that the authors of the code might not be human doesn't change this.

thouroughly reviewing and especially testing is faster than skipping manual review and tests

I can't deny that this might be a trend in practice, but at companies with reasonably self-aware practices, it isn't, or doesn't need to be.

There's this weird thing that happens with new tools where people seem to surrender their autonomy to them, e.g. "welp, I just get pings from [Slack|my phone|etc] all the time, nothing I can do than just be interrupted constantly." More recently, it's "this failed because Claude chose..." No, Claude didn't choose, the person who submitted the PR chose to accept it.

It's possible to use tools responsibly and effectively. It's also possible to encourage and mentor employees to do that. The idea that a dev has to be effectively on call because they're pushing AI slop is just wrong on so many levels.

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