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Don’t bet against the ‘suitcase principle’ of white-collar work
Humans have a remarkable ability to create jobs for themselves – whatever the progress of technology
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People began to expect work to be done quicker because they knew it could be done quicker, says the writer.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PEXELS
Sarah O’Connor
In 1984, journalist Steven Levy wrote a great article about the electronic spreadsheet, a new invention which was saving people huge amounts of time. He told the story of an accountant who got “a rush task, sat down with his micro and his spreadsheet, finished it in an hour or two, and left it on his desk for two days. Then he FedExed it to the client and got all sorts of accolades for working overtime.”
I have spent the past few weeks meeting lawyers, accountants and consultants who are beginning to use generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their everyday work. They all talk about the time savings involved in having the AI do technical research for them, or the first drafts of documents or provisions.
