AI Could Make Us Busier Than Ever, Says Oxford Professor

Jan de Vries · 2026-07-30

There's a narrative we've all bought into: that artificial intelligence will free us from the drudgery of work, giving us more time for leisure, family, and the things we actually enjoy. But what if that story is wrong? What if the opposite is true? Carl Benedikt Frey, an economist at Oxford University, has thrown a wrench into that comfortable assumption. His argument is simple but unsettling: AI might not give us our time back. Instead, it could pile more work onto our plates, leaving us busier than ever before. It's a counterintuitive idea, and one that deserves a closer look. ### The Efficiency Paradox The logic behind the "AI will free us" camp is straightforward. If machines handle the mundane tasks—scheduling, data entry, basic coding—then humans should have more breathing room. Frey suggests we're looking at this backward. His point is that when tools make us more efficient, we don't necessarily work less. We often just take on more. Think about email. Before it, we sent letters and waited days for replies. Now, we fire off dozens of messages an hour and feel obligated to respond to every single one. The convenience didn't shrink our workload; it expanded it into every waking hour. AI could do the same thing on a much larger scale. If you can write a report in ten minutes instead of three hours, your employer might just ask for more reports. If you can analyze a dataset in seconds, the expectation becomes that you'll analyze every dataset, from every angle, for every possible insight. ### The Shifting Burden Frey's warning isn't just about volume, though. It's about who carries the load. He argues that AI might shift work from organizations onto individuals. Consider how customer service has changed. Instead of calling a help desk and speaking to a representative, you often end up troubleshooting through a chatbot or navigating a self-service portal. The company saves money, but the work of solving the problem has moved squarely onto your shoulders. This pattern could repeat across industries. AI might automate the "easy" parts of a job, leaving the messy, complex, and time-consuming parts for humans. The result? You're not out of a job; you're just doing a harder version of it, with less support. ### What This Means for Your Career If Frey is right, the way we approach our professional lives needs to shift. Here are a few practical takeaways for navigating an AI-heavy future: - **Guard your time deliberately.** If a tool makes you faster, resist the urge to fill that extra space with more of the same work. Use it to focus on higher-value tasks that actually move the needle. - **Set boundaries early.** The expectation of constant availability is a slippery slope. If you respond to a message at 10 PM, you're signaling that you're always on call. That's a hard habit to break. - **Develop skills AI can't easily replicate.** Creativity, emotional intelligence, and complex problem-solving remain firmly in human territory. Double down on those. - **Negotiate for outcomes, not hours.** If your output doubles thanks to AI, that's leverage. Use it to ask for more flexibility, not more assignments. ### The Bigger Picture This isn't a Luddite argument against technology. Frey isn't saying AI is bad or that we should abandon it. He's simply pointing out that technological progress doesn't automatically translate into personal freedom. The industrial revolution gave us machines, but it also gave us the 9-to-5 grind and the factory whistle. We have a choice in how we deploy these tools. We can use them to create a society where people work less and live more. Or we can use them to create a world where everyone is a 24/7 gig worker, constantly tethered to a stream of tasks generated by algorithms. The outcome isn't determined by the technology itself. It's determined by the decisions we make as employees, managers, and policymakers. If we don't actively push for a future where AI serves our well-being, we might just end up with a future where we're busier than ever, wondering how we ever got so behind.