In 1984, the journalist Steven Levy wrote a great article about the electronic spreadsheet, a new invention which was saving people huge amounts of time. He told the story of an accountant who got “a rush task, sat down with his micro and his spreadsheet, finished it in an hour or two, and left it on his desk for two days. Then he Fed Ex-ed it to the client and got all sorts of accolades for working overtime.”I’ve spent the past few weeks meeting lawyers, accountants and consultants who are beginning to use generative AI in their everyday work. They all talk about the time savings involved in having the AI do technical research for them, or the first drafts of documents or provisions.
I was curious about what they were doing with the saved time. Going home early? Having longer lunches? Stupid question. They’re using the time to do more work.
White-collar workers demonstrated the same tendency in the pandemic. A global survey of people in 27 countries published this year found that working from home saved about two hours of commute time per week per worker in 2021 and 2022. What did people do with it? According to the survey, they devoted the biggest chunk of it — about 40 per cent — to doing more work, with smaller amounts spent on leisure and childcare.