Guy Reams (00:00.782)
This is day 323, the escalating scale of productivity.
I think new phenomena began in 1972 with the release of the HP35 scientific pocket calculator. This is the escalating scale of productivity. Every year that goes by, we are expected to be more productive as individual task workers. That is exponentially increasing. For my entire life, I have been on this ever -increasing expectation of personal productivity brought on by innovation. This is not going to stop anytime soon.
My only choice is to quit, die, or both. Let me explain what's going on. Before the invention of the scientific pocket calculator, calculations were done by hand. Manual instruments were used, such as the slide rule and other conveniences. But for the most part, the output of a human was generally fixed when it came to this type of work. Sure, the typewriter was an invention, but it was not until 1971 when the first real word processors hit the market.
that individual human productivity for task type of work took off. The expectation of the amount of work produced by a single human has been ever increasing in almost every profession brought on by these types of innovations. When we were a largely agrarian society, meaning 95 % of the population worked on farms, the expectation of productivity was rather fixed. You knew exactly how many radishes a person could pick in a duration of time in a field
how many sheep could be sheared and how many fence holes could be dug in the span of a day. The human calculation was really rather simple. With the advent of innovation, we are under pressure to help realize the purpose of innovation to replace people with more productivity per individual. In my early days of teaching computer science, I joked that the primary ambition of the computer science profession was to get rid of people. That does not seem like so much of a joke anymore, but rather a cold reality.
Guy Reams (02:04.855)
Technology is rapidly increasing the productivity demands of a single individual, and there is no slowdown. Consider how much you can accomplish in a short period of time with your mobile phone. This has become a task worker's command station. Now here is something essential to consider. When an innovation first comes out, the smart and quick task workers will enjoy a brief hiatus. They will use innovation to do more work, give themselves a break, or improve their working conditions. However,
As productivity gains are realized, the smart task worker is expected to do more because the number of people who perform the given set of tasks will be reduced. The task worker will complain, of course. They will lament the layoffs and cutbacks, all the while using the new software technology innovation to do far more than they used to do when they were without it. This is by design. This is on purpose, and what is occurring in the business is catching up to the money that's spent on the innovation
and realizing its return. This may not be the actual business you are working for to make the gain. It could be the entire industry. And that can feel overwhelming to us. The individual task workers. So you keep embracing innovation. You keep learning to use it faster than other people. And therefore, you get allocated more work. You are on the escalating scale. And there is no getting off. You just have to keep up.
taking on more responsibility with each new innovation that comes around. Now, I know you taskmasters out there have been loving AI tools. You are faster than everyone else. You have learned the tools and are trying new things. You quickly dispatch common repetitive tasks with ease, and you enjoy a slight amount of relief from it. However, the time is coming, and that has probably already started, where the industry will catch up. And when it does,
You will be asked to do all of that and more as your normal course. AI has just multiplied your workload requirements by multiple magnitudes. It is not that AI is going to replace you. It is that AI is going to replace everyone else, and you will be expected to produce all that output as well. Welcome to the machine. This is the chase I've been on since the early 70s, and it continues. Will this ever end? I do not know. Not anytime soon.
Guy Reams (04:27.085)
A complete social collapse, a social collapse or something or something or perhaps some economic shift away from humans being the primary worker quotient. We are many decades away from that upheaval. So in our lifetime, we get to enjoy the steep climb of productivity with whatever innovation comes our way. It is almost like the hive mind knows of this issue as young people get trained early to join the task worker world.
with early gaming and social media and learn how to gain the edge via videos. Telling me that there is an army of social preneurs out there that make money by teaching us, the class of task workers, how to be more productive than ever before. That is only occurring because of the pressure and demand of unrealized productivity gains from new innovation. Sorry, there are no revelations today.
I just had this epiphany as I was typing on a gaming keyboard designed for highly rapid keystroke control, watching input from my three monitors, laptop, tablet, and phone, and dealing with critical alerts from an entire stack of productivity tools. But I've been on this train since I was in high school. I'm acutely aware that I'm slowing down too. Despite my decades of experience living on the edge of innovation, there is an army of youngsters who could displace me in a heartbeat. I will get taken out by a headshot the second I enter into their game.
Here I used to be the Slayer, no more. Now I check my tasks off like a good little worker bee.