[HN Gopher] AI isn't killing jobs, it's 'unbundling' them into l...
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AI isn't killing jobs, it's 'unbundling' them into lower-paid
chunks
Author : gnabgib
Score : 21 points
Date : 2026-03-29 20:51 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| egonschiele wrote:
| > The human is left doing whatever the machine can't, often a
| narrower slice of the original role
|
| I haven't seen anyone talk about AI and its impact on flow yet.
| It's pretty easy for me to achieve a flow state while coding
| without AI, but with AI, I'm not so sure. I spend my time
| managing multiple Claude instances as they work on different
| tasks, and there's no time to go really deep into anything.
|
| Flow was such a productivity boost for me. Even though Claude
| definitely helps me finish tasks quicker, I've started wondering
| how much quicker it actually is, vs getting into flow.
| tartoran wrote:
| I've seen people share the same experience here on HN. Im also
| in the same boat while I find LLMs uncomfortably useful but
| quite tiring to work with. To maintain flow I spend more time
| on crafting a complete and clear promot, akin to programming in
| natural language and avoid the back and forth when possible.
| supermdguy wrote:
| I've tried having one "big" task that I'm focusing on with
| active back and forth while letting other Claude instances
| handle easier back-burner type tasks that it can effectively
| one-shot. But I've noticed that often turns into me spending
| more time/focus than I'd want on tasks that aren't actually
| that impactful. I still think I get more done than I would
| otherwise, but I still haven't found the best management
| strategy.
| auggierose wrote:
| Some people think that flow is a negative. You do what you feel
| like doing, not what you should be doing.
| roxolotl wrote:
| This is a piece I liked a lot about how to make coding agents
| better for flow state:
| https://haskellforall.com/2026/02/beyond-agentic-coding
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46930565 - February 2026
| (90 comments)
| ssss11 wrote:
| Sounds like you've become a manager.
| david_allison wrote:
| IMO: That's just due to the speed of responses.
|
| Hardware will continue to improve, and eventually you'll have
| the choice of reaching a flow state with 2026 models, or using
| frontier models at our current level of performance.
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| In a sense, that is almost exactly the vision of the future
| shown in accellerando. User can and does send tons of
| specialized agents into the world. I am still not certain if
| I buy the premise of the article, but then my company is too
| cheap to let me play with Claude.
| danans wrote:
| > In strong-bundle occupations... AI improves performance inside
| the job, but does not remove the human from the bundle," the
| authors argue.
|
| At least in software engineering, AI can't replace the
| accountability that only humans can provide, but it multiplies
| the surface area that a human is accountable for, driving up the
| work demands on worker in one dimension while it lowers the
| demand for actual coding. On balance, it's more work down with
| far fewer people.
|
| > It also squares with what we're seeing so far. AI is reshaping
| jobs, not wiping them out. Tasks move around, productivity may go
| up, yet employment and hours haven't shifted much - at least yet.
| In many cases, the bundle is still holding.
|
| AI will supercharge the decades-old trend of productivity growth
| dramatically outpacing both employment and compensation, as the
| returns go primarily to the owners of capital.
|
| The result: a lack of job _growth_ while productivity still
| rises, and also stagnant wages as workers lose the labor market
| leverage.
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