> The world does not wait with bated breath for product launches. A marketing campaign will not change the world. Almost no one will remember all the work we do.
It did at one time! I think that’s what’s so alluring initially about Workism. People waited with bated breath for the iPhone and iPad and its new versions. Those iPod commercials and the marketing campaigns for “rip. Mix. Burn.” did change the music world.
But the quote is also right. It doesn’t happen anymore, and I think that’s why the religion of Workism is especially vulnerable at this point.
In someways, it sorta feels like the article is cheering AI on? Like, it judges Workism, and goes on to say that AI shatters the illusion, but then.. that’s it? Deriving value from good work is pointless now and we should all just go volunteer?
I dunno, i clearly identify with those who loved work and now feel a bit lost, and yes i have been thinking about alternatives, but I feel like there must be knowledge work that is still valuable both financially and socially and also provides some sense of pride and purpose… if not, i fear the situation is much more dire than we are prepared for
I think the next frontier for (knowledge) Workists is to use the AI to make sci-fi shit. Someone go make me a schematic for a 3d-printed battery. Someone go make me a an electric (flying?) skateboard kit. Someone go make me an at-home clothes printer. Someone go make me a flying car. Someone go make me an RPG that feels like Morrowind, EverQuest, or WoW did when I was a teenager - let me play it on the couch with my friends and our kids. There are so many possibilities… I feel like the doomers here are (rightly) mad that these kinds of problems are hard and not the same as “write me a web GUI that lets me search a database for music” or even “spend 80 hours writing a custom k8s operator to manage autoscaling for semi-persistent queues” but compared to what tech was 10 years ago, the ability to create anything and everything right now is amazing.
for what it’s worth I still get that excited feeling every time there’s a smaller, distilled LLM that I can run locally. I think it unlocks so many use cases that are pro consumer. Probably an edge case though!
It did at one time! I think that’s what’s so alluring initially about Workism. People waited with bated breath for the iPhone and iPad and its new versions. Those iPod commercials and the marketing campaigns for “rip. Mix. Burn.” did change the music world.
But the quote is also right. It doesn’t happen anymore, and I think that’s why the religion of Workism is especially vulnerable at this point.
In someways, it sorta feels like the article is cheering AI on? Like, it judges Workism, and goes on to say that AI shatters the illusion, but then.. that’s it? Deriving value from good work is pointless now and we should all just go volunteer?
I dunno, i clearly identify with those who loved work and now feel a bit lost, and yes i have been thinking about alternatives, but I feel like there must be knowledge work that is still valuable both financially and socially and also provides some sense of pride and purpose… if not, i fear the situation is much more dire than we are prepared for