Do We Need AI to Revolutionize Work?
In recent months, I’ve been doing a fair number of interviews about my new book, Slow Productivity. I’m often asked during these conversations about the potential impact of artificial intelligence on the world of knowledge work.
I don’t talk much about AI in my book, as it focuses more on advice that individuals can put into place right now to escape busyness and find a more sustainable path toward meaningful accomplishment. But it’s a topic I do think a lot about in my role as a computer scientist and digital theorist, as well as in my recent journalism for The New Yorker (see, for example, this and this).
With this in mind, I thought I would share three current thoughts about the intersections of AI and office productivity…
First, the large language model tools drawing the bulk of the attention at the moment, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, will not, on their own, revolutionize knowledge work productivity.
