Who Works for Whom

We May Have Flipped the Model on How We Work with Technology 

“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.”  Elbert Hubbard 

We’re about to test that theory. Again. 

Technology has been changing and improving the way we work since the 1960s. Watch any portrayal of a 1950s office (or re-watch Mad Men) and you’ll be astounded by the number of people it took to do the work. Companies employed dozens of women as typists. Copies were created by carbon paper. A group of women operated the switchboard to route calls through a building. Actual humans operated elevators, pumped gas, and opened doors for guests.  

The advent of personal computing in the 1980s dramatically increased the productivity of office workers and systems. When the internet became available in the 1990s, we saw exponential growth in productivity. As it has become smaller, more portable, and more affordable, technology has taken over almost every business or personal task. 

But behind every great technological advance is a human who designed the process, programmed the steps into the system, and entered the data. The computer could only process what we fed it, so it also allowed us to make mistakes at the speed of light. Big mistakes, like the 4:45 AM emergency alert signal sent to every mobile device in Florida on April 20, 2023. Or the even more alarming January, 2018 message Hawaii residents and visitors woke up to: a terrifying emergency alert on their cell phones that warned of a ballistic missile heading for Hawaii. Turns out it was a false alarm. That was embarrassing. 

Technology is getting smarter as it’s being programmed to catch human error. Algorithms alert banks about suspicious buying activity (Did you purchase a $4000 electric guitar in Las Vegas at 3:30 AM?) My online banking system alerts me when a payment is due and also when I start to pay an amount that is “significantly higher than your usual payments to this vendor” (did you forget the decimal point, my friend?)  Tech also gives us several chances to change our mind about deleting documents, sending messages, or making the purchase. Tech will also gently point out spelling grammar, and usage errors. It’s become a helpful partner instead of simply a tool. 

It’s working hard when we’re off duty. We can browse sites for information on how to do anything 24 hours a day, long after call centers and trained professionals are willing to help. We can learn all about the specs of something we’re planning to purchase before we enter the retail store. (If we bother; Amazon has it in stock and I can get it delivered tomorrow. That’s why so many retail brands are doomed.) 

The business of sales used to include a lot of explaining: who we are, what this is, how it works, and whether it will work for you. Now, we get all that information online; if the human in the store or showroom can’t add value beyond that, they are of no use to us.  

Humans used to be needed to prioritize tasks: which customer needed attention, which unit or component was going to need to be maintenanced or replaced soon, which accounts were late or overdrawn. Now, technology provides the data and brings it to a human’s attention so we can make a decision about what to do. More and more often, the decision has been made, the component ordered, and the account flagged before the human shows up at her desk. Chat bots have solved most of your customers’ routine questions and directed them to help pages, leaving us to work on the most complex problems and with the angriest customers.  

By all accounts, we’re at another tipping point. Machine Learning and artificial intelligence have suddenly become available to almost anyone, thanks to tech companies who are offering user interfaces that make queries easy.  

AI can write your report, do your research, update your LinkedIn profile, or write a love poem for your anniversary. Web copy, social media and blog posts, and marketing copy could theoretically be done by AI instead of pricey copywriters. In fact, we have a friend who’s a writer who was recently given an assignment to edit a website that was written by Chat GPT. “It was a little weird,” she says. “I wasn’t sure who was working for whom.”  

Maybe we’ll all have that experience within the next few years.  Maybe even the CEO.  

Rich Thompson is CEO of Podium X and XPG Recruit. He is a former professional placekicker and expert on human resources, career development, training and leadership. Rich recently published his first book Relentless: Leading Through Performance, Relationships, and the Lessons of Sports.

 See Rich’s Podium.