The rise of the machines has been greatly exaggerated. Sure, it’s great (though not very often) when Spotify recommends a new song I like. And I appreciate central heating. However, when a real person recommends a book, makes me a cup of coffee, or helps me solve a problem, I’m more willing to listen, more likely to be fulfilled, and experience higher levels of meaning.
It has become cliché wisdom that automation is coming – and it certainly is in many areas. I’d like my car to drive itself, my insurance company to stop using paper (and to give me better rates – I’m very responsible), and for LunchClub to set me up with interesting people to talk to. We’ve become a little irrationally optimistic about tech’s ability to solve every problem and bulldoze every inefficiency though.
Moore’s Law is part of the problem. As Vaclav Smil points out in his deep etymological tome Growth, our ability to consistently fit so many more transistors on chips has caused us to believe the Diamondis-Kurzweil Principle of Exponential Everything Right Away. Whether or not we’re only 20 years away from living forever and colonizing the solar system, I still want human connection in many of my interactions with companies and systems. Again, not all of those systems – the DMV needs to be an online-only, phone number-free government agency. If there were a reliable chat function on Amazon where I could ask an expert what they think of the headphones I’m checking out and get a nuanced, honest answer, I would consider getting back into Bezos’ world.
As we design businesses to be more efficient and profitable, we should also consider how to make them more human. Even if the efficiency and profitability losses are high, the narrative, differentiation, and experience benefits can be huge. Ask yourself, “How could I add more humans to this system to make it more human?” Pay and support these humans well too – humanness is self-reinforcing.
Roman Ryan 