--- title: AI promised less work. I've never worked more | daily.dev description: AI coding agents made implementation cheap, so one VP of Technology ended up doing far more work, not less. His GitHub contributions since 2019 show he's back... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-promised-less-work-i-ve-never-worked-more-e6fgvj5pb twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: AI promised less work. I've never worked more | daily.dev og:description: AI coding agents made implementation cheap, so one VP of Technology ended up doing far more work, not less. His GitHub contributions since 2019 show he's back... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-promised-less-work-i-ve-never-worked-more-e6fgvj5pb og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/E6fGvj5Pb.png og:image:alt: AI promised less work. I've never worked more og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # AI promised less work. I've never worked more **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 9 min read · 18 upvotes · 8 comments ## Summary AI coding agents made implementation cheap, so one VP of Technology ended up doing far more work, not less. His GitHub contributions since 2019 show he's back at his old full-stack engineer pace: 2,102 contributions by October 27, already above any year from 2021 to 2025. August 2026 hit 427 contributions, the busiest month ever recorded, versus a prior high of 319 in April 2020. He describes three burst-and-burnout cycles so far, where cheap implementation removes the friction that used to limit how many ideas he'd pursue at once, leaving him mentally drained from constant context switching between parallel agents. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Does using AI coding agents actually reduce a developer's workload? Not necessarily; one VP of Technology found the opposite happened. His GitHub contributions jumped to 2,102 by late October, already surpassing every full year from 2021 to 2025, with August alone hitting 427 contributions, the busiest month in his entire history. He attributes this to cheap implementation removing the friction that used to limit how many ideas he pursued at once. _Weighing whether AI agents will lighten or expand your workload? daily.dev surfaces real engineer experiences with AI coding tools._ ### Why does working with multiple AI coding agents in parallel feel mentally exhausting? Constant context switching is the main driver. Running several agents at once means each eventually returns with a question, a plan to approve, or a diff to review, forcing a reload of a different problem, repository, and set of decisions every time. Unlike holding one serious task in mind for a week, attention gets spread thin across many problems simultaneously, which proves more draining than the old workload despite no single task being harder. _Juggling several coding agents at once? daily.dev tracks firsthand accounts of managing AI-driven workflows without burning out._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 337 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-27). **TL;DR:** Most responders reject the post's premise outright, arguing it was always naive to expect AI efficiency gains to translate into less work rather than more output demanded for the same pay; the thread quickly pivots into a broader, heated argument about labor economics, unions, and whether collective action can still counter automation-driven pressure. **Sentiment:** 15% positive · 30% mixed · 55% skeptical **The case for** - A few describe AI as genuinely reducing drudgery and freeing mental energy for more interesting problems. - Some argue skilled engineers paired with AI could become more valuable, not less, if AI acts as a multiplier on expertise. **The pushback** - Many argue it was naive to ever expect efficiency gains to translate into less work instead of more demanded output for the same pay. - Commenters say increased AI-driven output often comes with more bugs and accumulating tech debt. - Several see rising expectations and global competition (including willingness to 'vibe-code') as forcing people to deliver more, faster, for less relative pay. - Some view constant AI-driven productivity as a warning sign of overwork and psychological strain rather than something to celebrate. - Skeptics doubt unions or political organizing can meaningfully counteract automation given globalization and capital mobility. **By community** - hackernews (heated): Discussion splits sharply between those who find the post's premise obviously naive and a long, contentious sub-thread arguing over whether unions, politics, or market dynamics can protect workers from AI-driven overwork. **Hottest debate:** Whether unionizing or political organizing can still meaningfully push back against AI-driven labor pressure, or whether it's already too late given globalization and capital mobility. **Open questions** - Will productivity gains from AI ever be shared with workers rather than captured entirely by employers/shareholders? - Can collective action (unions, politics) still function effectively in a globalized, automatable labor market? - If AI absorbs most knowledge work, what happens to wages and the value of software/labor over time? **Highlights** > The opening premise baffles me. What kind of illusion must one be under to believe that employers would ever pay you the same amount of money to do less work? Realistically there were only ever two possible outcomes: you do more work for the same amount of money, or you’re one of the ones who were laid off and your work was transferred to the former. The only way it will result in less work and the same or better quality of life is if you’re self-employed or are employed by a compassionate human. Sadly that does not apply to the majority of people. > — [nkrisc on hackernews · 27 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50258334) > I'm very pro-union but I feel like at this point attempting to organize will just speed up the process of replacing as many people as possible with machines, not slow it down. It's too little, too late. I don't understand what kind of society we're building right now. Anthropic and other AI labs at $20T valuations, the 1% monopolizing all the wealth and the rest of us out of a job and fighting for the scraps? There seems to be some sort of magical thinking within the AI crowd at the moment, that it'll all work itself out in the end. - Build the God Machine - ?????? - POST-SCARCITY UTOPIA! > — [simias on hackernews · 6 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50258537) > Oh but AI has wiped out some of the most tedious work I have to do. I can now easily work every waking minute, and some sleeping minutes, at a level approximately comparable to my prior 8h workload from 10 years ago. The amount of mental energy saved, and downright stimulation gained from seeing rapid feedback in a tight loop is making my workday much easier. I have enough left to continue it longer. > — [jvanderbot on hackernews · 3 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50258610) > > I can now easily work every waking minute, and some sleeping minutes, at a level approximately comparable to my prior 8h workload from 10 years ago. That is not something that should be celebrated. It is a warning sign. > — [nkrisc on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50258880) > On the plus side for us worker bees, this is why I never really bought in to the narrative that our jobs were inevitably doomed. A question I've posed a few times: Consider two reasonably similar competitors with 100 engineers two years ago. Suppose AI really does accelerate development 10x times. It doesn't (at least not yet) but the larger number helps bring the question into focus. One company fires 90 engineers and does the same work with the remaining 10. The other company keeps all its engineers and does 10 times the work. Who wins in the market? It's not a uniform answer. There are times and places where the first one wins, as well as a mixed strategy. But I think broadly speaking the majority answer is the second. > — [jerf on hackernews · 3 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50259031) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50257325) · 198 points · 337 comments ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@diyweb** · 10 upvotes > Cheap implementation removes the friction that used to limit how many ideas got started. A simple guard is a work-in-progress limit: no more agents or open branches than you can review properly in a day. The cost moves from writing to deciding and reviewing. **@baturhanpro** · 3 upvotes >  **@elmarchavez** · 3 upvotes > The human mind is a resource. It can only keep up with so much information. AI is a tool that allows faster code generation but understanding and higher decision making is what makes it too much. Now, companies expect us to do more just because AI is here. In this age, we are now sacrificing quality for more quantity and that's never a good sign. **@akkitto** · 3 upvotes > Literally me a couple of weeks ago. If you don't use the time you gained to actually have more time, we are back in the damn old rat race, once again. > > Same with work hours. We got extremely efficient in the past decades, yet, nobody had the brain to actually reduce our working time below 40 hours as the adjusted default for how much more efficient we are working, compared to decades ago. **@kartiknvj** · 3 upvotes > Sixteen days at 24 or more contributions this year, against one a year from 2022 to 2025, says more to me than the 427 in August. March scares me more, 203 against your 114 average, in a month that didn't feel like a push. I run agents in parallel too, and "just a quick prompt" adds up the same way for me. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I Spent 1 Month Watching AI Agents Write Code in Production. Here’s What Nobody Tells You.](https://daily.dev/posts/i-spent-1-month-watching-ai-agents-write-code-in-production-here-s-what-nobody-tells-you--ch2azxdgp) · Medium · 3 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#github](https://daily.dev/tags/github), [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity), [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-promised-less-work-i-ve-never-worked-more-e6fgvj5pb) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"AI promised less work. 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His GitHub contributions since 2019 show he's back...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e8a2c49c947ff97d4f88b9d70aa6f655?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e8a2c49c947ff97d4f88b9d70aa6f655?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hacker News","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hacker News","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/hn","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},"commentCount":8,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-promised-less-work-i-ve-never-worked-more-e6fgvj5pb","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":18},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":8}],"keywords":"github,productivity,leadership,ai-coding","timeRequired":"PT9M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hacker News","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"AI promised less work. I've never worked more"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-promised-less-work-i-ve-never-worked-more-e6fgvj5pb","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"Cheap implementation removes the friction that used to limit how many ideas got started. A simple guard is a work-in-progress limit: no more agents or open branches than you can review properly in a day. The cost moves from writing to deciding and reviewing.","datePublished":"2026-10-27T18:05:00.778Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/E6fGvj5Pb#c-g8Yw0mJ2L","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"DiyWeb","url":"https://daily.dev/diyweb","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--dgS6jDeN--/f_auto/v1790879420/avatars/avatar_774zDwMaRTNS1fv5OKStX?_a=BAMAMicg0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":10}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"","datePublished":"2026-10-28T13:36:43.819Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/E6fGvj5Pb#c-oaWUmtYqA","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"baturhan","url":"https://daily.dev/baturhanpro","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocJQ5s2w7kYYdDOtufZ5g50O0V3n1gmNk50z9iPj53RuGAjc2Ss=s96-c"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"The human mind is a resource. It can only keep up with so much information. AI is a tool that allows faster code generation but understanding and higher decision making is what makes it too much. Now, companies expect us to do more just because AI is here. In this age, we are now sacrificing quality for more quantity and that’s never a good sign.","datePublished":"2026-10-28T15:11:45.977Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/E6fGvj5Pb#c-cKCqe9o9Q","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Elmar Chavez","url":"https://daily.dev/elmarchavez","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--7PjH979T--/f_auto/v1780994221/avatars/avatar_bK85rJb2OXXID2LX2wi5y?_a=BAMAMiWQ0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Literally me a couple of weeks ago. If you don’t use the time you gained to actually have more time, we are back in the damn old rat race, once again.\nSame with work hours. We got extremely efficient in the past decades, yet, nobody had the brain to actually reduce our working time below 40 hours as the adjusted default for how much more efficient we are working, compared to decades ago.","datePublished":"2026-10-29T11:36:50.941Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/E6fGvj5Pb#c-s7UFFHVyF","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel","url":"https://daily.dev/akkitto","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--FtwJqX4c--/f_auto/v1754900041/avatars/avatar_29TCpY2hJR72V3BlxPXzX?_a=BAMClqZW0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Sixteen days at 24 or more contributions this year, against one a year from 2022 to 2025, says more to me than the 427 in August. March scares me more, 203 against your 114 average, in a month that didn’t feel like a push. I run agents in parallel too, and “just a quick prompt” adds up the same way for me.","datePublished":"2026-10-28T13:53:12.575Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/E6fGvj5Pb#c-AYucKNewq","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"kartik-nvjk","url":"https://daily.dev/kartiknvj","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--3gGgsVCw--/f_auto/v1781456774/avatars/avatar_TvTVeiMdkRCqWUDullFmy?_a=BAMAMiWQ0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-promised-less-work-i-ve-never-worked-more-e6fgvj5pb#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Does using AI coding agents actually reduce a developer's workload?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Not necessarily; one VP of Technology found the opposite happened. His GitHub contributions jumped to 2,102 by late October, already surpassing every full year from 2021 to 2025, with August alone hitting 427 contributions, the busiest month in his entire history. He attributes this to cheap implementation removing the friction that used to limit how many ideas he pursued at once. Weighing whether AI agents will lighten or expand your workload? daily.dev surfaces real engineer experiences with AI coding tools."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Why does working with multiple AI coding agents in parallel feel mentally exhausting?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Constant context switching is the main driver. Running several agents at once means each eventually returns with a question, a plan to approve, or a diff to review, forcing a reload of a different problem, repository, and set of decisions every time. Unlike holding one serious task in mind for a week, attention gets spread thin across many problems simultaneously, which proves more draining than the old workload despite no single task being harder. Juggling several coding agents at once? daily.dev tracks firsthand accounts of managing AI-driven workflows without burning out."}}]} ```