Some would say I’m in the business of replacing humans with AI and robots. That I’m one of the evil puppet masters turning our world into a dystopian Player Piano, all in the name of profit.
I don’t see it that way, of course, but I understand why some do. My role is automation, and yes, using automation to scale a small company. Which means I’m in the trenches, and that gives me a unique perspective that politicians, journalists, and other doomsayers don’t have.
But they do have one thing right: capitalism incentivizes productivity, and to a large degree, automation is about productivity (to be clear, it’s not only about productivity).
We seem to be in a cultural milieu obsessed with personal and collective productivity.
I’ve fallen prey to it myself. I’ve studied, implemented, and written about several systems to make myself more productive. As if productivity was mine and your main problem.
All we need to reach the promised land is to be more productive — productive like machines!
But that’s not true at all. We don’t need to be more like machines.
We need to be different than machines.
The good news is that we are fundamentally different than machines. We’re humans. And leaning into our humanity is ultimately what will take us to the promised land.
Your humanity is a feature, not a bug.
