AI didn't reduce workload. It added threads. Workers using AI tools found themselves managing more simultaneous tasks, not fewer, trading depth for volume.
This matters because the productivity narrative around AI assumes efficiency means doing the same work faster. The Sidebar piece challenges that. The real pattern emerging is parallel cognitive load, more active conversations, more context-switching, more balls in the air at once.
The piece is worth reading in full because the implications reach beyond burnout discourse. If AI reorganizes how humans allocate attention rather than reducing the total demand on it, every assumption about AI-driven efficiency gains needs reexamination.
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