Cal Newport

There are a lot of concerns in our current discourse about work and technology.

Here, for example, is an Economist article from just a couple weeks ago.

The headline reads, Prepare for an AI jobs apocalypse.

It is not here yet, but government should lay a safety net.

Yikes, right?

Now here's a Times headline from just last week.

California's governor signs AI order aimed at protecting workers.

Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order to explore an overhaul of labor policies to deal with potential mass job displacement from artificial intelligence.

Now notice what these examples have in common.

They're all about the potential catastrophic loss of jobs that might occur if technology automates existing roles.

But there's another possibility that people haven't been discussing as much, but it's a possibility that I've increasingly come to worry about.

What if the real fear with new advancements like AI is not that these technologies are going to take your job.

But instead are going to make your job miserable.

And if this is true, what specifically can you do to avoid this fate?

Well, it's Monday, meaning it's time for an advice episode of this show, which is the perfect opportunity to go seek out some answers.

All right, so here's the plan.

I'm going to start by telling you a story, a story about how technology has slowly and somewhat accidentally made knowledge work jobs increasingly worse.

And then I will talk about how the arrival of AI might take this long unfolding process and accelerate it to an absurd degree, creating what I've taken the calling

The Busyness Singularity.

Now, once I've told you this tale, I'll then share some practical advice about what you can do individually to avoid the gravitational pull of this grim fate.