How to Do More with Less

8Doing More with Less Using AI

Throughout history, new technologies have often arrived with a sense of disruption, stirring both excitement and anxiety before gradually finding their place in everyday life.

The arrival of the elevator brought a different kind of change. When the first elevators appeared in buildings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people were uneasy about stepping into a small box that would be lifted dozens of feet into the air by invisible machinery. Stories of elevator accidents only added to the public's wariness. To ease these fears, buildings hired elevator operators, often called “elevator men,” whose job was not only to control the machinery but also to provide reassurance, a human presence in an unfamiliar and potentially unsettling space. The operator would greet passengers, open and close the doors, and assure everyone that they were in safe hands. Over the years, as elevators became more reliable and their use more commonplace, people's fears faded. The operator's job gradually disappeared, leaving behind self-service elevators that no one thinks twice about using today.

Now, we find ourselves at similar crossroads with artificial intelligence. For many, the rapid rise of AI stirs up the same kinds of anxieties that accompanied earlier innovations. There are worries about jobs, the future of human creativity, and the pace of change itself. Some people wonder if their skills will be replaced or devalued, just as painters once ...