The measured productivity gain from AI is 7.8%, not 10x, and I think that gap explains the backlash

Measured productivity gains from AI tools across hundreds of engineers average 7.8%, not the 10x figures cited in vendor pitches, with 66% of peak gainers reverting within a quarter. The central argument is that backlash stems less from technical skepticism and more from asymmetric incentives: workers absorb adoption friction and skill erosion risk while employers capture the margin. For practitioners, this framing matters because mandated rollouts without gain-sharing structures may actively undermine the adoption quality needed to sustain even modest productivity improvements.