Jevons paradox in the AI era
Smart CEOs are hiring more people in the AI era, not fewer.
Jevons paradox: when a technology makes a resource more efficient to use, total consumption of that resource often goes up. Lower cost raises demand and creates more work overall.
When steam engines got fuel efficient, coal consumption rose. It started the industrial revolution, not its end.
I’ve felt it firsthand, testing 43 files in an hour. GitHub’s data shows developers using Copilot write more code, not less. Features that took weeks now get prototyped in hours by one engineer.
The question is whether you cut headcount or raise throughput.