Comment by selkin

> and it's much easier (and more productive) to review work already done than to do it yourself

This isn't the tautology you imagine it to be.

Consider the example given here of having AI write one line draft response to emails. To validate such response, you have to: (1) read the original email, (2) understand it, (3) decide what you want to communicate in your reply, then (4) validate that the suggested draft communicates the same.

If the AI gave a correct answer, you saved yourself from typing one sentence, which you probably already formulated in your head in step (3). A minor help, at best.

But if the AI was wrong, you now have to write that reply yourself.

To get positive expected utility from the above scenario, you'd need the probability of the AI to be correct extremely high, and even then, the savings would be small.

A task that requires more effort to turn ideas into deliverables would have better expectation, but complex tasks often have results that are not simple nor easy to check, so the savings may not be as meaningful as you naively assume.