From executing to instructing
de l'exécution à l'instruction
In a field experiment on 2,310 participants, people working with an AI agent made 71% fewer direct edits and sent 63% more messages than those working with another human.
Read the two numbers together. The work did not disappear and it did not shrink: it moved. Less doing, considerably more instructing, framing and coordinating. That second category is the one no job description contains and no timesheet counts.
This is the experimental measurement of the mechanism that role debt names. The direction is established; the size in any given organisation is not, and cannot be inferred from a laboratory task.
What this source does not establish
An advertising task run on an experimental platform, with no human-alone condition, and the authors state it may not capture long-term collaboration. It measures the direction of the shift, not its size in your organisation.
What it means for an SME running AI
Your teams are not producing less. They are producing differently, and the part that grew is the part your organisation has no unit of account for.
Related terms
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