Tech executives have long promised that artificial intelligence will liberate us from the nine-to-five grind, yet their employees are pushing back with tales of gruelling 'sprints' and 90-hour weeks.

Despite claims that AI tools like Claude can work autonomously for seven hours without a break, tech workers inside companies developing these very technologies are finding themselves working more than ever. OpenAI’s former technical employee describes a culture of crisis meetings, weekend shifts, and intense performance reviews. At Meta, employees are being 'drafted' onto urgent AI projects with little choice.

The reality seems to be that while AI promises efficiency, it may just be adding an extra layer of complexity, sucking up time savings from one task into another. A study by UC Berkeley found that workers using AI ended up taking on broader tasks and working overtime.

Meanwhile, tech companies like Google are facing internal issues as crucial resources get diverted to AI projects, leaving some employees working all hours to keep things running. The question is: will the benefits of AI outweigh its current downsides?