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Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying
(www.thenerve.news)
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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Because they're not really successes.
No one here is saying AI has reduce their workload so now they spend half their time catching butterflies.
The answers are all saying that AI has automated some mundane task that wasn't particularly important, and now they can spend their time doing something more interesting.
Is the changes to their role, multiplied by millions of employees, actually better for humanity or society?
In a way, this is what Doctorow is arguing: where is the data showing the productivity gains.
My follow up question is, how are these productivity gains being used, if they exist.
Aren't you assuming productivity gains will lead to free time? Why? It never has. Most of us work a fixed amount of time and get paid for that time. Not the amount of tasks we finish if that can even be measured.
Salaries have also not increased with increased productivity long before chatbots came online. So they won't suddenly increase now.
AI is much more just like a new laptop you get from work. The new device is faster, has more RAM and allows you to do more, potentially.
The big question is, if the purchase was worth it. Unlike a new laptop, LLMs are an ongoing cost to users and providers. Nobody except for GPU producers are actually making money right now. Hyperscalers make some of the money back they themselves invested into the companies using their services, but in the end the ROI looks pretty dim for anyone.
So even if there are real productivity gains, you won't see people relax with their kids more. And even if these gains are significant they may not prevent a huge economic collapse so we all will have plenty of time with our kids in the end anyway.
That absolutely sounds like a win to me. Why is productivity gains the only thing that's important? QoL is what matters. Unless you're a capitalist overlord.
100%! I don't understand how this is a hard concept to grasp. I've been able to make productivity gains, sure, but who gives a fuck? Even if my productivity is the same, my QoL is still much improved when I'm not buried in mundanity.
The problem here is that the technology is owned by capitalist overlords.
And their goal isn't improving your QoL. If that was the goal we would already enjoy 4 hour work week long time ago.
Doesn't matter what the goal is, the context of this particular discussion is that AI is benefiting at least some people by making their lives easier. And one guy who's trying to argue 'so what, it only matters if productivity goes up'.