Discussion
Rowland's newsletter
vessenes: Some real gold from SuburbanWhiteChick in the comments: Fifth. Computerization has not improved standards; it has merely homogenized them. When humans do work, even soul-killing work, they either get bored and get out or they start to slack or sabotage or, in the overwhelming majority of cases, they start to pay attention and make it matter, they get fussy, they figure out how to do it better. When computerization was introduced in the offices in the 80s (I was there) there was more hue and cry among the clerks and secretaries that they were being asked to do a worse job only faster, than among those who objected to learning the computer, and this applied not just to document production / handling and records management but to communication protocols. When companies ordered their clerical workers to fit their duodecahedronal tasks into square computerized holes, data was lost forever, as well as these workers' hard-won, thoughtfully developed methods of tracking and processing data. This is PRECISELY the divide I see in engineering today - those temperamentally inclined to do things well / keep learning are entering a very exciting time. Those inclined to clock punch are rightly worried.
delichon: I love tables. If I can replace a paragraph with a table I usually do, to a fault. In college I was a research assistant in a bio lab and got assigned gobs of tables and charts to make. The way my boss did it, it was a highly non trivial task that required understanding the whole mission in general and experiment in particular. I was effectively his secretary, but it wasn't a shallow thing, it required domain expertise, which is common in secretarial work.But if I were now that professor I'd fire me, just because he could generate the table five times in the time it would take me to start the task. Maybe I could do better than the LLM on the first pass, but I couldn't keep up with the machine on the iterations, and the end result is a better match to the intention.And now the same budget can go to an actual researcher rather than the assistant. There really isn't a limit to the amount of valuable research to be done. Empowering is the right word for this technology.
Insimwytim: It is fascinating, that you took that quote and, somehow, managed to arrive at the opposite conclusion, while presenting this quote as confirmation.
kkfx: Honestly, I think the initial surge wasn't down to Jevons Paradox, but simply the general ignorance of those needing secretarial staff. They were incapable of using any "machinery" themselves and saw having staff as a status symbol: "I can afford to pay extra people, it shows others I'm rich, that means my business is doing well, and I don't have to scrape the barrel by doing everything myself"...Today is slightly different; we aren't in a period of general growth but in one of deep crisis. So, while not everyone is doing badly (as always), many really do need to cut costs by any means. Just as back then, they are generally as thick as two short planks, so they think they can axe functions they don't like, typically technical roles with specialists who aren't "low-level workers" and who might tell the manager of the day, "you're asking for nonsense, it can't be done"; the manager then discovers through failure that they actually couldn't do it, that marketing played them like a fiddle, and the real potential of the service they bought is far lower, the reality is different from what the salesman described. But it happens, and the manager just hops from one job to the next; they just need something for their CV that acts as self-promotion. The company went bust? "Well, I left just before that for that very reason, because I realised there was no future there", omitting any responsibility.What I can say as a sysadmin today is that I'm seeing:- a new collapse in code quality, the likes of which hasn't been seen, so they say, since 2008 (they say, because I was a 22's CE student, so I saw very little in person)- a massive increase in software without design, without a concrete idea, thrown together on the fly following a whim where the details are missing, and often the actual purpose needed to turn a fleeting late-night idea into a concrete project is missing too.This, along with other dynamics, makes me see nothing good ahead, not specifically for those working in IT, but for society in general. And it's not because of the "LLM effect", but because of decidedly human decision-making.
AlienRobot: How did you read something like this "When companies ordered their clerical workers to fit their duodecahedronal tasks into square computerized holes, data was lost forever, as well as these workers' hard-won, thoughtfully developed methods of tracking and processing data." and manage to misinterpret it? That doesn't even seem possible.
masfuerte: I read that the other way round. People who cared about their work struggled because they were expected to do more work of lower quality. The clock punchers learned the new tool and carried on clock punching.
arctic-true: I see this as well. Part of the appeal of any crafting hobby is that it doesn’t matter and you can just mess around, but the flip side is that nobody is breathing down your neck to get it done and you can take the time to realize your vision.
gdulli: Like the sibling comments, I see it the opposite way. Caring about your work in detail, anything the slightest bit bespoke, is becoming an antipattern. Employers want you to generate mediocre work because it's cheaper, and you only need to make sure it's not on fire. Mediocre peers are happy to go along with it as the short term path of least effort.
TacticalCoder: It's insane that all the answers to your comments are disagreeing that those want to do things well and keep learning aren't entering very exciting times.The negative comments are all agreeing, between themselves (but not with me), that people shouldn't learn anything anymore and shouldn't be inclined to do things well.It's really just sad to read such negative comments.As for TFA: TFA is very right in one thing... Secretary jobs didn't entirely disappear. People overreact (which is obvious in all the negative comments anytime AI is the topic) and believe "this time it's the end". It was the same with outsourcing to India/China: people overreacted and were convinced there'd be no more developers.I do think there are still going to be devs: and it's going to be, precisely, jobs for those who want to keep learning and do things well. And it's not the vast majority: the majority were perfectly happy knowing just the bare minimum to write the equivalent of "punch the monkey" abusive JavaScript ads and picked computing because the pay was good.I'm very happy to see those replaced by AI.
metalman: One day, purely by chance, I found myself at the corner of Young and Bloor, at noon, late 1980's, early 90's, and later I found out that business wisdom of the day was to attempt to compromise the cognitive powers of visitors to the high power offices in the area by paying secretarys to perform there duties while leaving nothing, or perhaps everything to the imagination, and getting a grand a day to do it, there bemused reactions to whatever look on my face as they hit the street going to lunch,is still fun to think about.
andy99: I’ve always thought the lesson is that tech doesn’t really save time, it just forces more manual work on us. The classic examples are secretaries, travel agents, and self checkout.
vessenes: Just to parse this out, I think y'all are correct at the reading - that people didn't want to give up their custom workflows to fit in with the times. In my defense, I was up early.I stand by my review - her entire response is excellent, whether or not I understood it, as is the original essay.
