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CONCEPT

Paradoxe de Jevons

An economic observation from William Stanley Jevons (1865): greater efficiency in using a resource can raise total consumption rather than lower it, because falling cost expands demand. Applied to AI-assisted development, it suggests that making code far cheaper to produce may increase — not reduce — the total volume written and maintained.

Origin

Formulated by economist William Stanley Jevons in The Coal Question (1865), on observing that more efficient coal use raised total demand.

application
Applied to code: lower cost → more than proportional demand for software (elasticity > 1)
category
Economic law - infinite demand when cost tends toward zero
description
Increased efficiency increases consumption rather than reducing it
definition
An AI-induced cost decrease can increase demand (and employment) if price elasticity is high
origin
Classical economics, William Stanley Jevons (1865) — applied here to generated code

Fiches (5)