At Psychology Today, Anna Katharina Schaffner, a professional burnout coach warns against the “lie” that AI saves time:

You are likely saving massive amounts of time each day—in theory, that is. If you are a knowledge worker, you have probably been marshalling the help of AI to research, summarise, analyse, and write stuff for a while. ChatGPT may shave hours, perhaps weeks’ or even months’ worth of labour time, off your working day regularly.

And yet you don’t leave work earlier…

It is also likely that, contrary to common belief, you are not concentrating on higher-level tasks and using your creativity more during your working hours since ChatGPT has popped up on our screens. Nor is it likely that you are suddenly taking time to optimise your systems and processes, bond more deeply with coworkers, or research potential market challenges for your services in 2035.

“The Great Time-Saving Lie,” June 18, 2025

So what’s the hitch?

Consider email. Invented to shorten the distance between sending and receiving messages, simply managing to stay on top of our overflowing inboxes has now become a major part of our day jobs. Cars were meant to cut travel time, but today, we spend more time than ever on blocked inner-city roads and jammed motorways, or on ever longer commutes to ever more distant workplaces. Vacuum cleaners were designed to ease the burden of domestic labour, and yet they have instead raised cleanliness standards to such an extent that we spend as much time cleaning as we did in the age of pig-bristle brooms and willow carpet beaters. “The Great Time-Saving Lie,”

In short, the processes and devices developed to save time proliferate, creating new demands for our attention by their very existence. The only solution, Schaffner insists, is to take charge and insist on determining whether time is well spent.

Remember, once time is gone, however we spent it, it’s gone for good. No technology will change that.

You may also wish to read: AI productivity hype: The new “cargo cult science”? Physicist Richard Feynman coined the term to describe imaginary scenarios for success based on simple misunderstanding of realities. The tech sector can push AI hype that resembles cargo cult science to its investors because of changes in media resulting from 30 years of the internet. (Jeffrey Funk)