What if AI just makes us work harder?

In a column in January about the paradox of work, I recalled the immortal Douglas Adams joke about working conditions: the hours are good, but “most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy”. The joke is back already — and generative AI has flipped the script.

Academics at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business have been doing ethnographic research into

https://timharford.com/2026/04/what-if-ai-just-makes-us-work-harder/

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What if AI just makes us work harder?

In a column in January about the paradox of work, I recalled the immortal Douglas Adams joke about working conditions: the hours are good, but “most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy”. The jok…

Tim Harford