 Like most of my elderly peers, I can’t remember where I parked the car or why I’m sporting a fake mustache and wearing a tutu on the bus, but I do remember all kinds of undelivered promises from tsunamis past. The internet was going to make us all smarter and more connected to each other. Nuclear energy was going to eliminate air pollution and slash electricity prices. Space exploration was going to give us rocket belts and vacations on Mars. Instead, we got an explosion of isolation, Three Mile Island…and Tang. The memories are coming back as I listen to AI zealots, and I really have to wonder if anyone has thought this through. I’m not even talking about the oft-stated odds (10-20%) that some AI model will create an extinction event. It could be a perfectly logical nuclear war or an absolutely irrefutable assessment of humans as a dangerous species to be eradicated or a decision to replace agricultural lands with data farms. However it happens, we’re toast. (And don’t you just love the fact that people talk about an “extinction event”? Doesn’t it sound so much nicer than “AAAAGHHHH!!! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!!!”) I’m not sure there is anything I would do on any given day if I knew it had a 10-20% chance of getting killed. Those percentages are much worse than any airplane trip, bike ride, bungee jump…possibly even worse than that greasy, cheesy thing Taco Bell is hawking this week. To be fair, though, 10-20% is still better than my odds any time I go to Chipotle. I can ignore the extinction problem for as long as the Valium holds out, maybe longer. The experts say AI-rmageddon will take a while to unfold and one of the big benefits of being very, very old is that I probably won’t live to see it, anyway. Sucks for the rest of you, but it’s one of the few advantages I have as I head into the home stretch. No, I’m thinking about other issues, and the whole thing really makes no sense. First, the numbers are impossible. The total amount of AI investment announced by major corporations will require more energy and more dollars and take more time than is everyone thinks. Costs will exceed forecasts, projects will take much longer than planned, and data centers will overwhelm the electrical grid. Some of these companies will fail, taking suppliers and/or customers with them, and the environmental impact is going to be huge. Some of these snags have already developed, so this isn’t “someday” stuff. Everyone on Wall Street knows this, but the train has left the station, stocks are bubblicious, and the experts believe they’ll know the exact moment to exit before the, um, correction. This is why Warren Buffett says it’s so hard to make money from transformational technologies. Too many competitors enter the market, speed bumps delay and derail progress, and a large percentage of investor money gets cremated. Somebody will come out on top, but (SPOILER ALERT!) it won't be you. Before that happens, though, we have to deal with AI’s immense drain on corporate efficiency. Yes, I said drain. We’ll read a million stories about some job that’s getting done in half the time, but history is written by the victors. Throughout the economy, people will be submitting erroneous reports that cost their companies both money and customers. New products will explode, sometimes literally. And, we’ll all be spending hundreds of hours double-checking the answers we get from formerly reliable searches. If every search now includes a disclaimer that, “AI can make mistakes, so double-check responses,” why am I using it? Even worse, if every search engine is using AI, where do I go to verify anything? That brings us to people, who will be a drag on the system until AI has the courage to do the right thing and kill us all. If there’s one thing we learned during Covid, it’s that people are dumber and lazier than we ever thought possible. Giving us access to AI tools is like giving a hand grenade to a toddler. Every day, millions of us will be churning out reports and analyses generated by AI and never, ever checked for errors. Recipients will be assigning AI tools to read and assess those missives. Humans will voluntarily step aside, let the LLMs do their work, and then act surprised when they get cut out of the chain. Finally, let’s talk about money. Ultimately, capitalism depends on people buying products and services, which they pay for with the money they earn making the products and delivering the services. As companies shed workers in order to invest their former salaries in new AI technology, the number of people who can buy stuff declines as well. Businesses always want to get more revenue with fewer employees, but there is a tipping point and we have no idea when we’ll hit it…if we haven’t passed the point-of-no-return already. The natural progression is to have more machines talking to other machines and, eventually, they won’t need people to oil their bearings. At that point, what supports the economy? Some seers suggest we'll need a Universal Basic Income, an idea so popular it got Andrew Yang nearly twelve votes in 2020. But UBI requires that every company pay the government to give money to unemployed people so they have enough cash to buy stuff. I’m not sure if that’s socialism or communism, but it doesn’t matter. Eventually, the robots will conclude that money is 100% unnecessary if they simply get rid of those pesky humans. At that point, an extinction event will be the most logical, efficient solution. By then, maybe the robots will be right. Subscribe? Why, yes, I'd love to, and all I need to do is click here?
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 Sharing a word to the whys this week as my befuddlement expands…
Subscribe? Why, yes, I'd love to, and all I need to do is click here?  I’ve always thought of myself as a hard-working, mission-first kinda guy, but lately I’m realizing that lazy people are wayyyyyyy smarter than I am. In fact, laziness might be a bigger sign of smarts than any IQ test, or even Wordle. Giving credit where it’s due, I owe this remarkable insight to my trainer, who has disabused me of my erroneous assumptions while abusing me in almost every other way imaginable. Every week, he has me doing 2,000 squats or 800 pushups or 500 crunches and, like any good student, I struggle and strain to complete the task. But here’s the thing. Once I’ve finished the job, I don’t get a break. Nope, the reward for lifting a couple thousand pounds is the opportunity to lift another thousand, and a thousand after that. Pretty soon, I’ll have quads the size of Philadelphia, but I don’t think that will appease him a bit. I had a few moments to think about it the other day, while I was walking off a leg cramp, and it occurred to me that this exercise thing is not an outlier. When I had an office job, I was one of the hardest workers in the place. No matter what the boss threw at me, I tackled it and completed it and took pride in my capabilities. And we all know what happened next, don’t we? Instead of a bonus or a day off, my reward for working hard was the opportunity to work harder. At first, I felt all warm and fuzzy when someone said, “You’re really good at this. Why don’t you take the first crack at it?” Eventually, though, I realized that I was at the desk until ten and all the people who weren’t as "really good at this" were living real lives outside the office. My sister used to tell me, “Once you take on a job, you own it.” It turns out she’s much smarter than I thought, because that’s one pattern that continues as infinitely as a Mobius strip. Whether it’s work or exercise or cooking or cleaning or making the vacation plans or the social plans…you get the idea…the person who does the work is doomed like Sisyphus to do even more. That’s why lazy people are so much smarter, and probably happier, than the rest of us. If the boss wants a job done, she doesn’t give it to a lazy bum who’s likely to miss the deadline. If someone gives up after lifting only three Volkswagens, the trainer doesn’t give them a fourth. If someone wants dinner, they don’t ask the person who won’t remember to turn on the oven. And so on. To be fair, every lazy person has to work, at least sometimes. Even the biggest sloth in the office needs to put in just enough effort to keep their job. There’s no point in dodging tasks if there are no assignments to evade. Clearly, laziness is a talent that requires great intellect and skill...an ability to be just sluggish enough to avoid work, without being so slow that you avoid a paycheck, as well. That’s a talent I’d love to develop at some point, and I’m 100% willing to work nonstop to become the laziest person you’ve ever known. Subscribe? Why, yes, I'd love to, and all I need to do is click here?  The plane is already at the gate when I arrive, the skies are clear, and there’s no reason to expect any delays on my morning flight.
Foolish mortal, what was I thinking? Of course, there’s a delay. The flight crew is coming in from Milwaukee and that flight hasn’t taken off yet. Our departure time gets pushed back a few times, unlike the plane, until I get bored and walk up to the gate agent to ask for an update on when the crew might arrive. He points down the concourse and says, “There she is now.” She? She, as in one person? That’s the flight crew we have been waiting for? Why, yes, it is. The solitary woman rolling her suitcase behind her as she runs to the gate is the reason we’ve all been delayed two hours, so far. Those two hours, BTW, are more time than it would have taken for her to Uber from Mitchell to O’Hare. It’s going to be a while, because she has to get on board and set up whatever nobody bothered to set up in the two hours we’ve been waiting. Then, we’ll spend the next 40 minutes boarding by group. I’m in Group 2, which is actually Group 10, after Global Services, Platinum, Active Military, Families with small children, Inactive Military, First Class, Families with large children, people who need extra help, and Group 1. With nothing but time on my hands, I start doing the math. We’ve got a $100 million jet that hasn't done any of its scheduled jetting for the past two hours. Even if the plane is older and it cost half that when new, that’s still $50 million. If the airline’s paying 6% interest on the loan they took out to buy this thing, that’s $3 million per year, or roughly $340 per hour, 24/7. The airline will be on the hook for about $700 of carrying costs for this delay, which will lead to other delays and re-bookings all along the chain of dominoes on the schedule. (They'll try to make it up in the air, but it's tough to erase a two-hour delay on a two-hour flight.) Meanwhile, there was at least one other flight, possibly two, that was supposed to depart while we were waiting for our damsel from Milwaukee. Those planes were delayed, along with their crews, which meant other flights also got delayed with their crews. There’s a multiplier effect here, and the airline is probably paying more than $1,000 per hour as our delay ripples across the schedule. Some crew members, including pilots, might time out for the day and need replacement, as well. But, wait, there’s more. We only have one gate agent to handle the flight, and now there's a new delay. Early in the boarding process, some guy tries to get the agent to switch some seats so the passenger can sit with his friend, but the plane is full and the agent cannot accommodate. This guy isn’t taking no for an answer, though, and we end up delayed another seven minutes until the agent finally asks him to step aside so the rest of us can board. So, we’ve got equipment that’s idle and workers getting paid to wait and passengers who will miss appointments, totaling many thousands of dollars, but somebody at the airline thinks they’re saving money. I happen to be flying United this particular day and I’m at O’Hare International Airport, the world’s busiest. It’s also United’s home and its busiest hub. No surprise, of course, that they’ve cut the number of gate agents and other staff over the years, but it would be surprising to me if they’re really saving much. You can measure employee costs directly, but it’s much harder to measure the costs created by understaffed operations. Those are just the airline’s costs, of course. The costs of missed connections is a burden for the customers, but that doesn’t show up on the income statement. On the income statement, staffing costs are lower and somebody’s getting a bigger bonus this year for keeping those costs under control. Someone else is getting a smaller bonus, or zero, as they absorb the costs that are shifted, not saved, as headcounts fall. Maybe it will balance out as the higher bonus for one guy gets deducted from the other. Many years ago, airlines discovered that it was less expensive to give passengers a full tomato in their salads, rather than half a tomato, because it cost more to slice the damned things than they were worth. I suspect some of the savings from cutting staff are equally elusive. Subscribe? Why, yes, I'd love to, and all I need to do is click here?  I was crushed by a bus door on Friday and it was a major learning experience, although I’m not completely sure what lesson I'm supposed to be taking to heart. Usually, a ride on the CTA is an uneventful opportunity to mingle with my fellow citizens while avoiding both traffic jams and overpriced parking lots. Even when the bus is full, you can almost always find a spot to stand without becoming, um, excessively intimate with your fellow passengers. On this particular ride, the place to stand was near the front door, which crushed me when the driver opened it at the next stop. I didn’t scream like a little baby, but I did let out a very deep and thunderous and manly groan that alerted everyone to my agony. Even the driver noticed, which was nice, since he was the only one who could close the damned door. A few passengers asked if I was okay, if I needed any help, etc., and one jealous guy with clearly capitalist intentions urged me repeatedly to call an ambulance. Nothing appeared to be broken, though, so I declined the opportunity to overburden the medical system. Still, just in case I was really injured, I decided to take a photo of the bus number. Suddenly, the driver started paying attention. He yelled to everyone to stay away from the doors, even the back doors that couldn't hurt a flea. He wanted to know why I was taking a picture. He wanted to know whether I needed help. Then, he stopped the bus and ordered everyone off. Apparently, this was an incident that required an official response, but only if/when the injured passenger takes a photo. Everyone left the bus, but I stayed with the driver, who kept telling me I should have stayed away from the door. It would have been nice if he'd mentioned that five minutes earlier, but he missed that opportunity. Of course, theoretically, I knew I wasn't supposed to block the door, but I didn't know that A) I actually was blocking the door and B) the motor that opens the door applies enough force to kill a child. I've been stuck near the door on an overcrowded bus a million times, but this was a first. You live and you learn, as they say, although that aphorism only works out if you live. So the driver was motivated at this point and he got on his phone to get help. I don’t know exactly whom he was calling, but it doesn’t matter, because nobody showed up. After waiting with him a while, I opted to try walking it off and headed to my next destination. I was hurting quite a bit, but I knew I’d be hurting whether this was a big deal or nothing. If it was nothing, the walk would help keep me from stiffening up. If it was something, I’d find out eventually. I knew I’d be in pain for a while, no matter what, so standing with the bus driver wouldn’t make a difference. An hour later, on my way back home, I saw the same bus coming down the street. I double checked the number because, as we all know, I took a photo. I guess someone finally showed up to take the driver’s statement or whatever and, unlike me, at least he got paid for his time. Back home, now, I’m trying to figure out what I learned from this experience. If I’m going to get injured, at least I want to get some kind of life-changing insight out of the deal. I’ve tried to find a message about the arbitrary nature of fate, the need for self-reliance, maybe the limitations of rapid response. Nothing has come to mind, so far, other than avoiding buses that are so crowded you have to stand by the door. Maybe that has to be enough. Like Nietzsche said, if a bus door doesn’t kill you… Subscribe? Why, yes, I'd love to, and all I need to do is click here?  I like to think of myself as a fairly honest bloke, but it occurs to me that I end up saying things that aren’t exactly, 100% true from time to time. It’s all in the interest of good will and not hurting feelings, of course, never for my own personal benefit, but I’m probably losing points on the cosmic scorecard. This realization has led me into an intense and deeply challenging level of introspection, forcing me to reconsider my entire value as a human being and the lack of purpose in my existence. JK. I forgave myself within 1.7 nanoseconds and decided I’ll keep up my deceit. It’s not like anyone died, or at least nobody who didn’t really deserve it, and I haven’t been one of them, so far. Still, I want to be 112% transparent with my readers, so it’s only fair that I share my fabrications with you. If you ever hear me saying or writing any of these things, be assured I am lying to you:
While some of my minions might be shocked and disappointed at my prevarications, the truth is that you all should be thanking me and, so far, none of you appears to be grateful enough. Lying is so much better than truthing, which makes me almost saintly for doing it so much. First, lies are much more creative than the truth, which is just one thing and doesn’t change much. Lies can stretch the boundaries of possibility, inspire great emotion, and spark our fantasies. Facts are facts, but lies are portals to new worlds. Second, lies keep the peace. It’s always a risk to level with someone about a tough subject, but a great lie can make everyone feel better about themselves and maintain a relationship. When we lie to someone, we are showing them kindness and saying we care about their feelings. When we tell the truth, we’re harsh and cruel and insensitive. Third, lies free us from accountability. That’s the case for the lies we tell, of course, but even more so for the lies we are told. Once we accept and act on the basis of a lie, we have the perfect out, and the perfect villain, for anything that goes wrong afterwards. “Dang, I can’t believe how much Karen screwed things up for you by lying to me about that.” Now that I think about it, I’m going to give up on the truth altogether and recognize that dishonesty is the best policy. Maybe I can use that slogan when I run for president. Subscribe? Why, yes, I'd love to, and all I need to do is click here? |
Who writes this stuff?Dadwrites oozes from the warped mind of Michael Rosenbaum, an award-winning author who spends most of his time these days as a start-up business mentor, book coach, photographer and, mostly, a grandfather. All views are his alone, largely due to the fact that he can’t find anyone who agrees with him. Archives
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