Jevons paradox: Increased efficiency in resource usage can paradoxically lead to increased consumption, not decreased.
Article: Jevons paradox - Wikipedia
Jevons paradox is the idea that making something more efficient can unexpectedly cause people to use even more of it rather than less.
Economist William Stanley Jevons first noted this in 1865. He saw that when technology made coal easier and cheaper to use, people used more coal overall, not less. Because coal became cheaper, more people used it, and they used it for more purposes.
Another example: if cars become more fuel-efficient, driving each mile will cost less. However, because it's cheaper, people might drive more often or take longer trips. In the end, total fuel use might actually go up instead of down.
I first learned this from Satya Nadella's tweet on AI efficiency. AI making workers more efficient might increase the demand for their labor rather than decrease it.
This also reminds me of Baumol's Cost Disease.