February 9, 2026
Less work? Try faster burnout
AI Doesn't Reduce Work–It Intensifies It
The AI treadmill: you go faster, the work never ends
TLDR: New research says AI tools don’t lighten workloads; they speed them up and add oversight chores. Commenters clash between burnout warnings and claims that newer tools have improved, turning it into a “treadmill vs. turbo” fight over whether AI saves time or just makes stress arrive faster.
AI promised fewer chores and more creative time, but a new study says reality is messier: AI doesn’t shrink the to‑do list— it speeds it up and piles on management. The comments lit up. One worker, btbuildem, swears the article “nails it”: with bots handling the tiny tasks, you still have to check, coordinate, and own the results—hello, cognitive overload. Think: less typing, more supervising, and somehow more stress.
Cue the drama. hlynurd roasted the headline with a meme‑y zinger about its “word‑to‑LLMism ratio” (LLM = large language model), while bunderbunder dropped a salty sailing lesson: going faster isn’t the same as going the right way. The mood crystallized around a sports meme: “It never gets easier, you just go faster,” the Greg LeMond line that turned into the thread’s catchphrase for AI‑at‑work vibes.
But not everyone’s buying the doom. energy123 waved the “that was eight months ago” flag, insisting tools have leveled up and that today’s systems handle more context with less copy‑paste. That split set the tone: Team Treadmill (burnout and oversight) vs. Team Turbo (new tools are better now). The fight isn’t about whether AI helps—it’s about the bill that comes with it: are we automating the boring stuff, or just automating the pressure?
Key Points
- •New research cited in the article finds that AI tools intensify work rather than reduce it.
- •The study’s core conclusion is that employees’ work becomes more demanding with AI use.
- •Many companies are trying to increase employee adoption of AI tools.
- •AI is promoted for tasks like drafting routine documents, summarizing information, and debugging code.
- •The article contrasts the promise of freeing time for higher-value tasks with findings of increased work intensity.