One of the main promises of AI is to take over tasks that humans find daunting.
Simon Willison, co-creator of Django and Datasette with over 20 years of software engineering experience, says that some uses of AI can actually be exhausting.
On Thursday’s episode of “Lenny’s Podcast,” Willison said using an AI coding agent has made his work faster and has also helped with his research.
They also make his work more focused, and he said he feels the effects before noon.
“If you go wrong with a coding agency, you’re wasting all your 25 years of experience as a software engineer and it’s mentally exhausting,” he said. “You can launch four agents in parallel and have them work on four different problems. By 11 a.m., you’re done for the day.”
His experience highlights the growing pressures of the AI boom. While companies tout AI as a way to save time and increase productivity, some early adopters say it’s also making their jobs more mentally demanding.
Willison said fatigue has become more pronounced since November as more advanced agent AI systems and open source tools make it easier to run multiple autonomous workflows at once. He said he and other engineers struggle to balance work and personal life.
“There’s a certain personal skill that we have to learn: finding our new limits,” he said. “I’ve talked to a lot of people who are sleep-deprived because they think, “I just need to stay up for another 30 minutes because my agent might do the job for me.”
Wison is not alone. Researchers and critics, including Harvard Business Review author Gary Marcus, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at New York University, have warned that AI tools could overburden workers rather than ease them. They caution that running multiple AI agents can speed up output, but also requires continuous monitoring.
These concerns are at odds with the vision envisioned by some of the biggest AI companies, who say autonomous agents will take more jobs away from humans.
Vinod Khosla, one of OpenAI’s biggest investors, said in an interview in March that he believes most of today’s 5-year-olds do not need to have a job as adults. Anthropic’s Boris Charney said in February that the software engineer job title would be phased out of the U.S. workforce this year.
Asked about other “AI-immersed” workers, Whisson said he was “defending” engineers and warned that obsessive dynamics could start to resemble compulsion.
Willison said he still uses AI tools because they amplify his abilities, even if there are downsides.
“I have more time, but I’m exhausted,” he said. “The fatigue from such hard work was a real surprise to me.”