Tell HN: If working with agents means this, robots, please take my job
9 points - yesterday at 9:15 PM
80% or more of my work day is spent iterating with Claude in a way that generates so much data and so many responses that I can't even keep up with, let alone validate everything.
The speed at which we're able to move forward is insane, but I feel like I’m inside some kind of experiment where my apathy and internal clock displacement are being evaluated.
We're entering an era in which we no longer have the option of not knowing how to do something or not wanting to do it.
we studied so much, specialized so deeply, only to approve or reject AI changes/ideas.
On top of that, my coworkers who arent developers are now having to deal with developers tools so everyone can collaborate, but the mental load is huge and they don't feel able to be honest with leadership about it. we're heading down a terrible path, one where owners benefit enormously, but employees dont.
I could move to another company but I wonder if that is becoming the norm out there
quinncom
yesterday at 10:59 PM
“We found that the phenomenon described in these posts—cognitive exhaustion from intensive oversight of AI agents—is both real and significant. We call it “AI brain fry,” which we define as mental fatigue from excessive use or oversight of AI tools beyond one’s cognitive capacity.”
https://hbr.org/2026/03/when-using-ai-leads-to-brain-fry
ex-aws-dude
today at 12:16 AM
That's something I haven't seen discussed much, what is the "annoyance-cost" of using the tool?
Say I complete a task 30% faster but what was the annoyance-cost of the model constantly getting it wrong and having to keep correcting it
markus_zhang
yesterday at 9:29 PM
I’m thinking about getting into Robotics given the opportunity. But it’s a vast gap so not sure if it’s going to work. We will see.
devInCamelCase
yesterday at 10:17 PM
I feel the same. After February when we got our team access to claude I 100'xd my work, but felt what I'm now calling agent fatigue.
3vidence
yesterday at 10:45 PM
Honest question what were you doing that could be 100xd
That did the companys revenue / profit significantly change in some way?
Even at a large company if a person 100xd their productivity that would meaningfully move the needle.
zeroCalories
yesterday at 9:21 PM
My coworkers and I have an informal agreement to let a few production issues show up until leadership changes their toon.
bhag2066
today at 12:53 AM
Congratulations they'll just replace you with another human before they replace them with AI.
You've added a step.
zeroCalories
today at 1:39 AM
Hey, if you want me to be an AI's manager, I can only give you a manager's level of certainty that a task is done well :) if I could fire the AI that created the bug I would, the best I can do is Ctrl+c. But either way, by the time I'm fired the codebase will be an incomprehensible mess and any new engineer won't be able to provide a good review for months. Hopefully they don't decide to fire everyone all at once.
salawat
yesterday at 10:21 PM
AI is to Software what CNC was to machinists. It's turning it into something more commoditized and less tilted in favor of skilled labor. The more you actually use these AI setups, the more training data you're giving these companies, the faster everyone gets obsoleted.
And make no mistake, it's entirely possible at some point they are storing outputs for being trained on to replace your Org's business too. Selling the inference agent is what's paying the bills in theory right now, that may change, and the next logical step is cannibalizing customers.
blaxbtc68
yesterday at 10:13 PM
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