Vibe coding emerged more than a year ago as a potential way to alleviate work-related stress for professionals. The concept promised that tedious manual coding would be a thing of the past, thanks to AI taking over these tasks. However, despite the rise of coding agents like Claude Code, recent findings suggest that these advancements may not have reduced the workload for humans but instead intensified it.
A study conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, titled “AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It,” examined the effects of AI tools on 200 employees over an eight-month period. The results revealed that access to AI tools led employees to work more, often at an accelerated pace and for extended hours. Surprisingly, this increase in productivity comes with its own set of challenges.
Employees Work More with AI Tools
The research highlighted that no employee was compelled to utilize AI tools; they simply received enterprise subscriptions to commercially available options. Motivated by the capabilities of AI, many employees took the initiative to increase their workload, as they found it gratifying to accomplish more tasks.
This tendency was not confined to specific job functions. The study noted an interesting shift: employees became less reliant on colleagues for certain responsibilities. “Individuals across the organization attempted tasks they would have previously outsourced, deferred, or avoided entirely,” the study reported.
But There Are Downsides
At first glance, this uptick in productivity might seem advantageous, but over time, employees found themselves burdened with increasing workloads. This shift could potentially lead to declines in the quality of work. Interestingly, some employees resorted to using AI tools during lunch breaks or meetings, eager to maximize their output.
Another challenge surfaced as engineers frequently found themselves reviewing AI-generated code from peers and acting as coding mentors, which only added to their responsibilities.
Ultimately, many engineers realized that AI did not alleviate their workload as they had hoped. One engineer expressed their disillusionment, stating, “You might think that because you can be more productive with AI, you’d have more time to work less. But in reality, you don’t work less—you either work the same or even more.”
A previous survey by consulting firm Section revealed that while over 40 percent of executives claimed that AI tools saved them eight or more hours per week, 67 percent of non-managers reported saving fewer than two hours. Furthermore, a significant number of workers felt more anxious or overwhelmed than excited about AI, with 40 percent indicating they would prefer to discontinue its use entirely.
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