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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.

category
Economic law - infinite demand when cost tends toward zero
description
Increased efficiency increases consumption rather than reducing it
origin
Classical economics, William Stanley Jevons (1865) — applied here to generated code

Fiches (3)