In many ways, this is a story that has been on repeat for over a century. In the early twentieth century, Taylorism — Frederick Taylor’s so-called scientific management—recast skilled machinists as extensions of the assembly line. Thinking belonged to the boss; the worker was there to obey. Autonomy and morale withered. Today, this same logic is migrating to office towers. Shortsighted companies roll out AI to surveil and dictate and, at the same time, de-skill and diminish. Some white-collar workers tell us it’s an assault on their minds. Take Claire, 34, a data scientist in New York City, watching her role at a security camera start-up blur as AI agents take over most of her coding work. “Even three months ago, I was doing a completely different job,” she says…. Overseeing multiple agents has created what some are calling “AI brain fry”—a mental overload from multitasking and AI babysitting. In handing off the work, Claire senses some essential part of herself slipping away. “I miss the flow of coding, the creative problem-solving, the thrill of wrestling with abstract ideas,” she admits quietly. “I’m afraid of losing my dreams to AI.”
Is it unreasonable to ask how many more suicides will be caused by AI?