The most seductive narrative in American work culture right now isn’t that AI will take your job. It’s that AI will save you from it.

That’s the version the industry has spent the last three years selling to millions of nervous people who are eager to buy it.

But a new study finds there isn’t a productivity revolution. It finds companies are at risk of becoming burnout machines.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/09/the-first-signs-of-burnout-are-coming-from-the-people-who-embrace-ai-the-most/

@isotopp

Kardashev Scale
-0.48 A civilization that is able to harness the power of one manual laborer. ~17W
0 harness the power of 60,000 manual laborers. ~10^6W
1 harness all of the power available on a single planet. ~10^16
2 harness all of the power available from a single star. ~10^26
3 harness all of the power available from a single galaxy. ~10^36
4 harness all of the power available in the entire universe. ~10^46

@isotopp

In 1973 Carl Sagan estimated that humanity is currently around Type 0.7. He derived the following formula by interpolation:

K = (log10[P] - 6) / 10

P = antilog10[(K * 10) + 6]

where:

K: Kardashev Rating
P: Power harnessed by civilization (watts)
log10[x] : Common logarithm of x
antilog10[x] : Common antilogarithm of x