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there was also a Stanford study that found that a surge in AI slop by lazy people actually created significantly more work for others who had to decipher and correct it this "I'm being efficient" (but not really) vibes well with the American obsession with artifice and appearing productive

I spent many years in NYC corporate legal IT and got a very intimate education on illusory productivity. Meetings where you walked out knowing less than you did when you walked in. People paid gobs of money for efficiency improvements that didn't improve efficiency. AI is an accelerant for that.

not to say that there aren't efficiency improvements had through automation, but terrible people layering half-cooked automation onto already broken workflows full of people obsessed with appearing productive in a country obsessed with artifice is going to have some curious outcomes

The execs at every company are obsessed with organizing yap sessions and are way more concerned with who they're yapping to than ever doing anything productive. LinkedIn lunatics try to go to 40 conferences a year.

I watch my wife have to attend these endless meetings where nothing is really accomplished and I don't understand when people do any actual work

That’s a good way to put it. Like, my county can’t afford a bus driver (evil govt spending), so 100 parents in cars line up for 45 minutes every morning and afternoon to drop off kids (free market!). I hunk a lot lately about how extractive private companies hate free efficient govt services.