Developers Would Rather Forgo Pay Than Give Up AI
petrusenko_max · x · 2026-07-12
An experiment by METR, founded by former OpenAI researcher Beth Barnes, found that the study almost collapsed when developers were paid hourly to do real tasks on their open-source projects, but some tasks could not use AI.
- 30%–50% of developers would quietly refuse "no-AI" tasks, even though they were willing to accept others.
- One developer assigned to the no-AI group ultimately failed to complete a single task, preferring to forfeit the money rather than revert to a non-AI workflow.
- The author's point: measuring AI adoption shouldn't just be about money spent or seats purchased; a more authentic signal is "people willing to give up income to keep their AI tools."
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