pchittum

No One Misses Knocker-Uppers

Note: the location of this has changed. I had accidentally posted it on a page instead of a blog post. Here's me, learning the platform, getting it wrong until I get it right.

In my work, everyone is currently trying to figure out AI.

That's a gross reduction of the reality of the situation...but it does pretty much sum up the whole of the business zeitgeist in technology today.

One topic people are discussing has to do with what it will mean to work forces when their employers get their hands on technology that can make a single employee superefficient. Or even further, when a piece of technology can (people imagine) completely replace a given job.

It's happened before: no one bats an eye that we no longer have clockwinders, telegraphists, town-criers or knocker-uppers.

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I was in a meeting last week learning about just such a feature. The representatives of the company were very well coached to zero in on the positive: of the growth in capability that a company could achieve by the addition of AI agents. They were careful to talk about the AI capability as additive, even in response to questions from attendees.

And if you're a software company who is hoping to create revenue on the back of the primise of an AI agent, where would you fall in this discourse? Of course, the line you'd want to push would be something like: companies can boost their growth by augmenting their current workforce with AI agents.

And I believe this will happen. But not only this.

There's a flaw with the line of thinking, though: not every company can maintain a solid stock price through growth.

Let's take one that has been eroding notably over the past decade: media.

Taking numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau in 2022, newpaper publisher revenue fell by over 50% between 2000 and 2020. Other periodicals went down by just over 40%.

If you're in traditional media, you're not going to grow your way to a successful bottom line. It. Just. Isn't. Happening.

And that's true for a lot of companies in non-growth markets where cost control is key.

So if you get your hands on a piece of technology that makes your workforce much more efficient, it stands to reason that the way that technology benefits you is through workforce reduction.

Sure, you'll need workers. You'll need workers that are capable with that new technology, certainly. But I think the only question will be whether to cut hard and early, or slowly taper off.

Ok. Maybe someone who is educated in economics may find a way to keep most or all of the existing workers, but there will not be some magical influx of AI agents that grows your revenue and you keep all of your existing workers if you're in media, or any other of a number of businesses that is not in a growth market.

This may sound like a bit of a doomer post. It's not. In fact, I see the rise in AI technology as an opportunity to do better for people. But I think it will require us rethinking what work means. But that's for another article as this one is long enough already.

The real point of this article is quite simply this: the always-sunny-all-the-time take that AI agents will only see the growth of capabilities and never the reduction of workforces is bollocks. If your company is in a growth market, then yes! You'll probably keep the same number of workers. Find ways for AI to help you scale. Everyone else is. But if you aren't in a growth industry, of course there will be fewer human workers in those markets. And we should be having honest conversations about this.

Thoughts? Leave a comment