Is AI Cheaper Than a Human?

Researchers at METR created a way to track the true cost of using AI agents for work. They call it the expenditure horizon. It measures if an AI task is cheaper than paying a human to do the same job.

Early tests on small coding tasks show that AI still struggles to be cost effective. These agents often spend too much time and computing power to reach a solution. For now, humans remain the better bargain.

This metric is not perfect yet because it has some blind spots. As newer models come out, the math could change quickly. We will keep watching to see if AI agents eventually become the cheaper option.