AI won't solve the work-theater problem
zug_zug
27 points
4 comments
August 18, 2026
Related Discussions
Found 5 related stories in 45.3ms across 4,128 title embeddings via pgvector HNSW
- AI is a bad tool shtgnwrng · 75 pts · July 13, 2026 · 56% similar
- The AI Productivity Illusion quick_brown_fox · 43 pts · July 25, 2026 · 54% similar
- I think you might be fooling yourself with AI louwrentius · 80 pts · July 23, 2026 · 54% similar
- AI Is Undermining Leaders' Judgment. Here's What to Do About It abixb · 14 pts · August 20, 2026 · 53% similar
- AI doesn't know how to forgive and cannot forget tejassuds · 21 pts · July 10, 2026 · 53% similar
Discussion Highlights (3 comments)
alfalfasprout
If anything, AI tends to vastly overengineer things (in a bad way) which makes bloat inevitable. But I'm not sure layers of management are to blame. If anything, good management incentivize the right things and focus a team on work that matters. Bad managers only try to empire build and incentivize the wrong things in their engineers. I've seen orgs that try to flatten too much end up with ICs basically left in the ether without meaningful direction which causes them to 'build to survive'.
0x500x79
I think that the start of the article was interesting, then it goes down the path of middle managers being the root of all evil, just seems a bit like whiplash. I completely agree with building the wrong thing is the root cause of a lot of failures. In fact, I think that AI has stopped a lot of the conversation of "Why should I not build this". Historically, that answer was ROI - why spend days/weeks/months on something that might not be valuable. Now I see people just saying "Yes, and" to all feature requests.
pjm331
If anything I’d guess that AI would usher in a Golden Era of Work Theater the likes of which we have never seen