Slashdot: 'The Downside To Using AI for All Those Boring Tasks at Work'

'The Downside To Using AI for All Those Boring Tasks at Work'
Published on January 09, 2026 at 01:31AM
The promise of AI-powered workplace tools that sort emails, take meeting notes, and file expense reports is finally delivering meaningful productivity gains -- one software startup reported a 20% boost around mid-2025 -- but companies are discovering an unexpected tradeoff: employees are burning out from the relentless pace of high-level cognitive work. Roger Kirkness, CEO of 14-person software startup Convictional, noticed that after AI took the scut work off his team's plates, their days became consumed by intensive thinking, and they were mentally exhausted and unproductive by Friday. The company transitioned to a four-day workweek; the same amount of work gets done, Kirkness says. The underlying problem, according to Boston College economist and sociologist Juliet Schor, is that businesses tend to simply reallocate the time AI saves. Workers who once mentally downshifted for tasks like data entry are now expected to maintain intense focus through longer stretches of data analysis. "If you just make people work at a high-intensity pace with no breaks, you risk crowding out creativity," Schor says.

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Slashdot: US Army Soldier Pleads Guilty To AT&T and Verizon Hacks

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