Hinds offered three explanations for this paradoxical result:
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When calculating the 11 hours saved, workers aren’t counting all of the time they spend waiting for AI agents to complete tasks (an activity some are now calling “botsitting”).
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The workers often ignore the cost of toggling between multiple AI tools as they attempt to get a usable response (60% of the sample reported running queries across several tools in search of better outputs).
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Workers may also be participating in what Hinds calls “workplace theater,” in which they are “visibly performing work for bosses and colleagues, rather than focusing on the actual grind of getting things done.”
That third one? ‘may’?
Put that one to the top - because it reveals the problem of people inside organisations that predates anything to do with AI and everything to do with how people in organisations work.
There is too much going on in the area of
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arse covering
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‘to all’ messages - and replies
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‘everyone’ meetings
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eternal ‘brownian motion’- confusing movement with direction
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non aligned objectives
the list is extensive - should I go on?