It's a hamster wheel of internalized shame over a weaponized Protestant work ethic.
Also, as David Graeber would say when discussing the 'bullshit jobs' theory, I think most office jobs, especially those held by men, involve more LARP-ing importance than actual work.
AI will enable and brainrot that to new heights of absurdity.
The work that can't be interfered with by AI is domestic and care work. That will continue falling more onto women. Men will be too busy chatting with their AI bots and pretending to be busy 'at work'.
This hits right at the center of how inequality is engineered. We are taught to view modern time-scarcity as a personal failure of productivity or "time management." But as you point out, it's a structural priority.
The horizons of time are so radically different at opposite ends of the wealth spectrum: due dates for bills, collections deadlines, and court dates... versus dynastic timelines and trusts.
Another insightful article! In countries like Italy and France, which famously have a reputation for la dolce far niente or plenty of time to really enjoy life, is this also as large a problem? It seems that North America is struggling with it's own rabid work ethic. The shame associated with daring to even take a day off at Christmas seems ridiculous, or heaven forbid, a one week summer vacation, seems to be a cultural issue, more than anything. And of course, women carry the heaviest burden because many men consider housework and raising children her job, alongside bringing home half the household income. We have created our own nightmare. And considering how much time we also spend fixing the "glitches" in our technology, or even accessing a web page or app, give double authentication, triple requests for yet another password, etc, I find myself longing for the rotary phone and tv's that don't require a PhD to initialize. I have found very little time saving with modern technology. It just brings up a whole new set of issues.
Thank you! Having lived in both France and Italy, I’d say it depends on where you are. In major cities (like Paris and Milan) people often have much more hectic schedules than elsewhere in the country. Europeans still work fewer hours and take more holidays on average than Americans, but we’re certainly not immune to the culture of overwork. And women aren't immune to the second shift. There was one study that found most French women feel stressed and tired even after the holidays because they were the ones who had to do most of the washing, cleaning, cooking, shopping, tidying up, etc....
Thank you for articulating something that has been on my mind for a long time, but seems to have been normalised by western society. It is refreshing to read an article that outlines how our obsession with ‘efficiency’ is actually leading to more work and inequality.
She nailed it. The lost value of labor is only part of it. The loss of jobs, employee tax revenue, consumer spending, related societal costs, environmental costs (which are significant and numerous) and the cost of youth not developing logic skills is not worth it.
Employers want it to cut labor costs, the cost of benefits and payroll taxes. The price of greed is will bankrupt society.
I reject AI at every chance, including electronic cashiers.
I wrote after reading it: "As the offices flourished, they needed stenographers who could take dictation, and they needed typists. The demand was so great that there were not enough men to do the job (and many didn’t want to be stuck in the same job with little chance of advancement), so companies started accepting women; there were more female and literate high school graduates who were willing to learn how to type, and they got paid less, too."
Excellent synthesis. The mechanism is not mysterious once you separate productivity from bargaining power: efficiency gains flow to whoever holds the leverage, and your NBER citation nails the newest lever, AI-powered monitoring compounding hours on top of AI-powered output. It is Taylorism with a chat interface. The washer and the typewriter needed no monitoring layer to extract the gain; AI ships with one built in.
Every 'optimisation' that saves minutes doesn't make them disappear. Management always has a knack for finding them, then a few weeks later, they’ve become a tighter deadline or another task. Funny how the savings always seem to know which direction to travel.
It's a hamster wheel of internalized shame over a weaponized Protestant work ethic.
Also, as David Graeber would say when discussing the 'bullshit jobs' theory, I think most office jobs, especially those held by men, involve more LARP-ing importance than actual work.
AI will enable and brainrot that to new heights of absurdity.
The work that can't be interfered with by AI is domestic and care work. That will continue falling more onto women. Men will be too busy chatting with their AI bots and pretending to be busy 'at work'.
Yup, care work and cleaning are especially difficult to automate.
Every tool that saved us time quietly signed a contract we never read: the time saved belongs to whoever we work for, not to us.
This hits right at the center of how inequality is engineered. We are taught to view modern time-scarcity as a personal failure of productivity or "time management." But as you point out, it's a structural priority.
The horizons of time are so radically different at opposite ends of the wealth spectrum: due dates for bills, collections deadlines, and court dates... versus dynastic timelines and trusts.
It is imperial time making itself seen.
Lovely breakdown, thanks!
The horizons are certainly very different. Being poor can take up so much time.
Another insightful article! In countries like Italy and France, which famously have a reputation for la dolce far niente or plenty of time to really enjoy life, is this also as large a problem? It seems that North America is struggling with it's own rabid work ethic. The shame associated with daring to even take a day off at Christmas seems ridiculous, or heaven forbid, a one week summer vacation, seems to be a cultural issue, more than anything. And of course, women carry the heaviest burden because many men consider housework and raising children her job, alongside bringing home half the household income. We have created our own nightmare. And considering how much time we also spend fixing the "glitches" in our technology, or even accessing a web page or app, give double authentication, triple requests for yet another password, etc, I find myself longing for the rotary phone and tv's that don't require a PhD to initialize. I have found very little time saving with modern technology. It just brings up a whole new set of issues.
Thank you! Having lived in both France and Italy, I’d say it depends on where you are. In major cities (like Paris and Milan) people often have much more hectic schedules than elsewhere in the country. Europeans still work fewer hours and take more holidays on average than Americans, but we’re certainly not immune to the culture of overwork. And women aren't immune to the second shift. There was one study that found most French women feel stressed and tired even after the holidays because they were the ones who had to do most of the washing, cleaning, cooking, shopping, tidying up, etc....
“ AI = Digital Herpes” ~Shelley Adelle Bliss
Thank you for articulating something that has been on my mind for a long time, but seems to have been normalised by western society. It is refreshing to read an article that outlines how our obsession with ‘efficiency’ is actually leading to more work and inequality.
She nailed it. The lost value of labor is only part of it. The loss of jobs, employee tax revenue, consumer spending, related societal costs, environmental costs (which are significant and numerous) and the cost of youth not developing logic skills is not worth it.
Employers want it to cut labor costs, the cost of benefits and payroll taxes. The price of greed is will bankrupt society.
I reject AI at every chance, including electronic cashiers.
#AIisEvil
re your second note, I recommend Margery Davies' "Woman's Place Is at the Typewriter: Office Work and Office Workers, 1870-1930" free download https://www.jstor.org/content/oa_book_monograph/j.ctv941x5s
I wrote after reading it: "As the offices flourished, they needed stenographers who could take dictation, and they needed typists. The demand was so great that there were not enough men to do the job (and many didn’t want to be stuck in the same job with little chance of advancement), so companies started accepting women; there were more female and literate high school graduates who were willing to learn how to type, and they got paid less, too."
my post https://lloydalter.substack.com/p/happy-birthday-qwerty-typewriter
Thank you for the recommendation!
AI makes you feel more tired and robs you of all the pleasure of creativity. I don’t think people will take this for much longer.
Excellent synthesis. The mechanism is not mysterious once you separate productivity from bargaining power: efficiency gains flow to whoever holds the leverage, and your NBER citation nails the newest lever, AI-powered monitoring compounding hours on top of AI-powered output. It is Taylorism with a chat interface. The washer and the typewriter needed no monitoring layer to extract the gain; AI ships with one built in.
Every 'optimisation' that saves minutes doesn't make them disappear. Management always has a knack for finding them, then a few weeks later, they’ve become a tighter deadline or another task. Funny how the savings always seem to know which direction to travel.