The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription
Simon Willison · Simon Willison · 2026-05-31
Simon Willison reflects on David Wilson's essay arguing that AI coding agents act as 'thermonuclear ADHD amplifiers' that spawn dozens of abandoned side projects, while noting that some users with ADHD report the opposite—greater focus and first-time project completion.
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Extraction
Topics: ai-coding-agentsproductivityadhdattentionproject-management
Claims
- AI coding agents enable going from a vague idea to a working, documented solution in under an hour, leading to project proliferation that outpaces any individual's capacity to maintain.
- David Wilson describes AI tooling as a 'thermonuclear ADHD amplifier' causing people to run multiple simultaneous unrelated projects with little commitment and little hope of maintaining them.
- Wilson concludes that the only way to manage AI's distraction effect is to curtail usage, calling cheap reward with minimal friction 'only a liability.'
- Several Hacker News commenters with ADHD report the opposite effect—agents help them finish side projects for the first time and provide the stimulation needed to sustain focus.
- Willison agrees discipline is the critical skill to develop but acknowledges he has been trying and failing to develop it for decades.
Key quotes
It's a thermonuclear ADHD amplifier and I have seen the same effect in every single one of my adult friends. Folk running 3 screens simultaneously working on totally unrelated 'projects' they have little hope of maintaining.
a tool producing a cheap reward with minimal input and no friction can only be a liability, and achieving that realisation is probably the only real contribution of AI to date.
I'm finding that coding agents can take me from a vague idea to a working solution, one with tests and documentation and that looks like a carefully considered project evolved over the course of many weeks... in less than an hour.