On My Own Time

(Today’s post forms something of a “Mundanity Trilogy” alongside Do Geese See God and Wash Rinse Repeat; I recommend reading them together)

Nearly every time I visit LinkedIn I see advertising for executive exercise programs. Usually they feature an AI-generated photo of a ripped 50-something dude running and a warning that goes something like this (read in movie-trailer voice):

You have spent 20 years being the sharpest person at the table, but right now there is a 38 year old VP in your building who is fully optimized. The margin for error is zero. They are replacing experienced executives with younger biologically optimized operators who can match the pace of what the market demands today.

Obviously this is goofy spam, but at least the pitch is to optimize for personal benefit. There’s some value in that, if it’s not taken to an extreme. But there’s another type of optimization pitch I’m seeing just as frequently that I believe is considerably worse. A representative example (not going to cite the source):

You have to use AI all the time, period, full stop, done. If you’re not using AI five times an hour, you are behind your competition.

Look, I like AI and am embracing ways it can make my work better and my life easier. But this incessant industry-wide push to streamline and optimize and maximize is getting silly.

I hope that what we do with our extra time is do even more and cooler stuff for the users who use our products every day.

So says Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth. Who do think that’s going to benefit? The individuals investing that extra time? Unlikely.

Maximal productivity is not a moral obligation. Don’t be Boxer. Has AI bought you some extra time? Go for a walk.