Is AI sucking the life out of us?

Recently, Steve Yegge’s essay The AI Vampire has been making the rounds, and the reactions to it suggest that it resonates with many people who are at the forefront of the (r)evolution triggered by the popularization of AI.

The key point of the essay? AI doesn’t just accelerate work — it changes its nature in a way that can be deeply exhausting for us. Yegge’s main thesis is simple, though a bit brutal: AI has become an “energy vampire.” Tools like Claude Code or Claude Opus 4.5 promise us the mythical “10x productivity.” The problem is that this efficiency doesn’t mean we work less. Quite the opposite — it makes every minute of work denser, harder, and more draining.

Working with AI can quickly turn into a constant stream of difficult and mentally taxing decisions. Yegge makes a sharp observation: AI automates what is easy and leaves us with what is difficult — synthesis, critical judgment, and the final verdict.

Suddenly, instead of a relaxing jog in the park, your job starts to feel like a training program made entirely of uphill sprints. Yegge even admits that after coding sessions with AI he sometimes experiences what he calls “nap attacks” — a side effect of making a huge number of difficult decisions in a much shorter time than before.

I fully agree with him: it’s hard to stay creative and effective if every second of work requires maximum cognitive intensity. The process of building foundational knowledge or wandering a bit in search of ideas — that’s exactly the space AI can take away from us by immediately offering polished solutions.

Variety is a key part of work hygiene. We need a mix of tasks where our brain can briefly rest or use completely different skills before it’s time for another big decision.

We also need to regain control over the denominator. Yegge proposes a simple equation: $/hr (dollars divided by hours).If AI increases the numerator (value), we should actively protect the denominator (time). Otherwise it’s easy to let the machine “drain” us — and instead of shortening our workday, we end up spending the same number of hours operating at a much higher intensity.

My main takeaway? Don’t be afraid to “waste” time thinking without algorithmic assistance. Designing, evaluating, and inventing eventually becomes tiring if we remove the small, craft-like repetitions that give our mind some breathing room.

A useful rule of thumb might be this: 3–4 hours of intense work with AI may already be a full-time workload for the human brain. The rest of the day might be better spent touching grass and doing something profoundly human.

What do you think? Do you feel more mentally exhausted after working with AI than you did before? Curious to hear your experience.

Who Invited the Vampire? The Economic Fuel of Automation

Earlier, I wrote about how AI can squeeze us like an energy vampire. But let’s be honest — vampires rarely enter uninvited. Someone has to open the door. And very often, that “someone” is an Excel spreadsheet.

Data doesn’t lie, but it does require careful interpretation. A recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research by Erik Brynjolfsson and his team found a clear correlation: in places where the minimum wage rises, the adoption of robots and AI often accelerates as well. That doesn’t automatically mean a simple cause-and-effect relationship, but it does point to the economic pressure companies are facing.

It’s a signal rather than definitive proof. Businesses tend to respond to rising labor costs in predictable ways: once the cost of human labor crosses a certain threshold, investing in an algorithm or a robotic arm stops looking like a futuristic experiment and starts looking like a normal business decision.

What About the “Human” Element?

This is the moment where it’s worth slowing down for a second. Do we really want a world where the main argument for employing a human being is simply that they are cheaper than electricity? That’s a rather grim vision.

The reflection I mentioned earlier when discussing Steve Yegge takes on a new meaning here. If we allow ourselves to be reduced to performers of repetitive tasks, we end up bidding against a robot — and the robot will always offer a lower price.

Our only real escape lies in what AI still struggles to imitate: empathy, creativity, and the ability to build relationships that are not based purely on optimization.

The Real Price of Innovation

For companies, the conclusion is straightforward: automation can act as a shield against rising labor costs. But for us — employees, creators, professionals — it should also be a warning signal.

If your work consists only of “processing tickets” or filling out spreadsheets, you are standing right in the blast radius of the economic vampire. The business wallet will naturally choose the cheaper and more efficient option.

Our task is to become something that cannot easily be replaced by zeros and ones — even if those zeros and ones are getting cheaper every year.

I agree with the authors of the study: economics can be ruthless. But how we respond to those economic realities is still up to us. Instead of fighting the vampire directly, we should stop competing with it on its own terms.

We won’t beat a machine in the number of processed data points — but we might win through the quality of the questions we ask.

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Is Europe an “Economic Death Sentence”? Why That Might Actually Be Good News

Recently, economic media lit up after essays by Brian Albrecht and Pieter Garicano. Their argument is blunt: Europe may be condemning itself to technological lag because its labor laws are too rigid.

Alex Tabarrok offers a brilliant — and slightly brutal — metaphor. Imagine if every first date had to end in marriage. Would you even go for that first coffee? Probably not.

This is how some economists view Europe: a place where companies are hesitant to hire (to go on a date) because they know firing someone later (the divorce) is extremely difficult.

The Missing European Tesla

According to Garicano’s essay “Why Europe Doesn’t Have a Tesla,” the absence of companies like Tesla in Europe is not an accident — it’s a consequence of policy choices.

For example, in Germany, mass layoffs must follow the principle of Sozialauswahl — a “social selection” rule. In practice, this means companies cannot simply let go of the least productive employees. Instead, decisions take into account social factors such as family responsibilities or age.

From the perspective of efficiency and innovation, some critics see this as madness — a structural brake that ensures places like Silicon Valley will always outrun Europe in the race toward Mars.

Markets That Became Homes

Another author in this debate compares the European labor market to the housing market.

In the United States, people tend to “rent” jobs — they move in quickly and move out quickly.

In Europe, we often “buy” our jobs on a mortgage. We want stability. We want to know that tomorrow we won’t wake up without health insurance because an algorithm developed in California had a bad day.

A Bad Place for Whom?

But it’s worth asking: for whom exactly is Europe a “bad place”?

For venture capital? Perhaps.
For founders trying to build the next Uber? Possibly.

But for the people who actually live in this system — is it really an economic death sentence?

Personally, I think Europe is a great place to live precisely because of these regulations, not despite them.

The Hidden Cost of Innovation

In discussions about regulation, we often forget that different groups have conflicting interests.

Innovation matters. But it is not an end in itself.

If the price of a “European Tesla” is the loss of economic security for millions of families, then it’s fair to ask: who exactly is that innovation serving?

The lesson here is simple. Before we start complaining about a “stagnant Europe,” we should also look at the costs that don’t appear in GDP tables.

Social stability, peace of mind, and protection for the vulnerable are also luxuries — ones that generations worked hard to build.

Not everyone understands that innovation, however beautiful and important, can come with costs we might not want to pay once we reach the checkout counter.

Let’s not fall for the narrative that the only measure of a civilization’s success is the number of unicorns — startups valued at billions.

Sometimes the greatest innovation is simply a system that allows people to live a calm and dignified life.

Hurry Sickness. Why Are We Running Even When No One Is Chasing Us?

Have you ever pressed the elevator button several times even though the light was already on? Or felt annoyed at the microwave because 30 seconds somehow feels like an eternity? If so, you might be experiencing hurry sickness.

An article by Kandi Wiens in Harvard Business Review is not just another piece about time management. It’s more like a mirror reflecting our modern anxiety. Hurry is no longer just a work mode — it has become a state of mind.

This state even has a name. The term “hurry sickness” was coined by cardiologists back in 1974 to describe Type A behavior: chronic time urgency, impatience, and constantly operating in fight-mode. According to research, as many as 45% of employees feel their workload has increased dramatically in the past year, and that the pace of change is simply too fast.

But the real problem isn’t just our calendars. The deeper issue is that our brains have forgotten how to rest.

The easiest way to see this is in the tiny moments of everyday life.

Imagine you’re standing at a red light. Your dog — if you have one, you probably know this well — simply sits and observes the world. It doesn’t worry about being late for sniffing bushes.

And you? You’re probably checking notifications, tapping your fingers on the steering wheel, and mentally drafting three emails and the agenda for the day.

This text is partly about me and partly for me. I often catch myself treating every free second as a gap that needs to be filled. At some point I became a slave to optimization.

And yet the most beautiful things in life — conversations, ideas, closeness — tend to appear exactly in those unfilled cracks of time.

Hurry quietly kills empathy. When we run all the time, other people start to look less like humans and more like obstacles.

Wiens suggests several strategies, but the most important one is simply recognizing the cost. Chronic stress is not just about feeling tired. It’s also about high blood pressure, insomnia, and burnout.

So what can we learn from this in practice?

The “good enough” rule. Not every decision has to be optimal. Sometimes “good enough” really is enough.

Celebrate small pauses. A red light or a line at the grocery store is not wasted time — it’s a free mindfulness session. Put the phone away.

A real “no.” Saying no to another task isn’t laziness. Sometimes it’s basic heart protection — quite literally.

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AI 2028?

If you’ve been anywhere near tech or financial news recently, you may have heard about a report from Citrini Research. Its authors outline an almost apocalyptic scenario: by 2028, the market value of human intelligence could collapse dramatically, shaking the foundations of our society.

The report doesn’t hide behind euphemisms. The argument is that AI will soon take over such a large share of cognitive work that the traditional concept of knowledge work may stop existing in its current form.

Personally, I’m not fully buying this vision — at least not in its most dramatic version.

I don’t believe in the “collapse of intelligence.” History shows that tools tend to expand the frontier of our abilities, not eliminate the demand for them.

That said, the report still feels like a very loud alarm bell.

The lesson seems straightforward: it’s time for the future of work to stop being just a topic for tech conferences and HR panels. It should become a core element of political programs.

What we need are systemic plans, not temporary benefits.

Maybe it’s worth looking at Denmark for inspiration. There, the retirement age is automatically linked to life expectancy.

Why not design something similar for work itself? Imagine a system of “career flexibility” that automatically adjusts to the pace of AI adoption and unemployment in a given sector.

If technology displaces workers, the system should already have a built-in script for reskilling and financial support — before the issue turns into a full-scale social crisis.

Instead of fearing the year 2028, maybe we should start demanding that politicians stop merely reacting to change — and start designing it.

The future of work is not something that simply happens to us.

It’s something we can actually plan.

In a Nutshell

Anthropic is without a doubt one of the most interesting players on today’s AI landscape. While many companies are racing for revenue and influence, they are trying something different: building a kind of “constitution” for Claude and placing ethics at the center of their work — even if that sometimes puts them at odds with the U.S. government. As reported by The New Yorker, the company is also doing something else: obsessively trying to peek inside the black box of their own models to understand how they actually work. It’s fascinating, because before we fully trust AI, we probably need to understand who — or what — we are having this ongoing dialogue with in the chat window.

Most guides for creators start with the classic advice: “drop everything and follow your passion.” The essay “How to Make a Living as an Artist” begins with a warning not to do that. And that’s exactly what makes it so refreshing. Worth reading not only for people who want to make money from art.

In one of the previous editions, I wrote about using AI conversation histories as a new kind of CV. What sounded like a slightly playful prediction at the time is slowly becoming reality — the first market players are already implementing such ideas.

Soon, your BMW leaving the factory in Leipzig might come with an unusual story. It may be assembled not only by human hands, but also by humanoid robots.

I also came across a post by Tomasz Paweł Puchalski, who delivered a great wholesome humblebrag about his routine and iron health. He genuinely seems to have “figured out life,” building his daily rhythm a bit like the quiet philosophy of Perfect Days by Wim Wenders.

Until next time,
Wiktor ✌️