Edward Bernays, the father of modern public relations, was still going into the office several times a week when he died in his sleep… at 103. Broadway producer/director George Abbott was working on a revival of his hit musical Damn Yankees when he passed away in his sleep. He was 107.
Both men had lived through and adapted to countless numbers of technological, cultural, and political changes. When Bernays and Abbott both died in 1995, information had evolved from print to digital, distribution shifted from postal mail to faxes and then email, live events morphed into film, radio, television, and online presentations, musical tastes shifted from ragtime to jazz to big bands to rock ’n’ roll, and the world shifted the balance of power to the United States.
Mailing lists for news releases went online. Lighting and sound cues for stage productions were being programmed with software. Sexual content was no longer forbidden.
Hire people smarter than you are... and get out of their way
Bernays and Abbott (and the organizations they led) adapted. In the tradition of great management, they relied on people who knew more about certain things than they did… and let them do it.
Today, however, people like that are looked at as anomalies. Oddities. Relics. They weren’t. The “don’t trust anybody over 30” mantra of the 1960s seems back in style. Yet the underlying principles of business and the techniques of marketing, sales, operations, and finance haven’t changed; just the ways they’re implemented. It’s easier to learn those new ways than it is to grasp the foundational concepts, but the people running the latest wave of business ventures don’t seem to believe that.
AI -- the old new thing
In 1991, the benefits of AI were very clear. Implementing AI/expert systems, however, involved months of interviewing domain experts and then months or years of transforming that knowledge into applications using a programming language called LISP. Unless you were a Fortune 100 corporation like American Express, Dun & Bradstreet, General Electric, American Airlines, Chemical Bank, Nippon Steel, and similar firms, the cost was prohibitive. Yet Chemical Bank’s application for fraud and error detection in international currency transactions paid for itself the first night it ran.
Who worked on those applications? People who were in their 40s, 50s, and even 60s. Some of the domain experts at those Fortune-ranked firms were on the high side of that, having gathered institutional knowledge over decades. That’s considered unimportant, it seems, in the era of machine learning and AI agents.
Fading futures
Companies are already considering eliminating junior positions and replacing them with AI. People with years of experience are no longer considered valuable once their knowhow is turned into code.
That should force people to wonder: “What’s my best-by date?” When will employers decide they can replace you with software? How long can you survive when AI isn’t offered as a tool to improve your productivity but as a replacement for you?
Most of all, what will be sacrificed? If technology undermines the workforce and eliminates workers’ income, who will have any money to buy what the robots and AI produce? Not many. That raises another question: “If no one has the income to buy essentials, let alone discretionary purchases, what will be an industry’s best-by date?" It could be the time when it unintentionally plans its own demise.
Both men had lived through and adapted to countless numbers of technological, cultural, and political changes. When Bernays and Abbott both died in 1995, information had evolved from print to digital, distribution shifted from postal mail to faxes and then email, live events morphed into film, radio, television, and online presentations, musical tastes shifted from ragtime to jazz to big bands to rock ’n’ roll, and the world shifted the balance of power to the United States.
Mailing lists for news releases went online. Lighting and sound cues for stage productions were being programmed with software. Sexual content was no longer forbidden.
Hire people smarter than you are... and get out of their way
Bernays and Abbott (and the organizations they led) adapted. In the tradition of great management, they relied on people who knew more about certain things than they did… and let them do it.
Today, however, people like that are looked at as anomalies. Oddities. Relics. They weren’t. The “don’t trust anybody over 30” mantra of the 1960s seems back in style. Yet the underlying principles of business and the techniques of marketing, sales, operations, and finance haven’t changed; just the ways they’re implemented. It’s easier to learn those new ways than it is to grasp the foundational concepts, but the people running the latest wave of business ventures don’t seem to believe that.
AI -- the old new thing
In 1991, the benefits of AI were very clear. Implementing AI/expert systems, however, involved months of interviewing domain experts and then months or years of transforming that knowledge into applications using a programming language called LISP. Unless you were a Fortune 100 corporation like American Express, Dun & Bradstreet, General Electric, American Airlines, Chemical Bank, Nippon Steel, and similar firms, the cost was prohibitive. Yet Chemical Bank’s application for fraud and error detection in international currency transactions paid for itself the first night it ran.
Who worked on those applications? People who were in their 40s, 50s, and even 60s. Some of the domain experts at those Fortune-ranked firms were on the high side of that, having gathered institutional knowledge over decades. That’s considered unimportant, it seems, in the era of machine learning and AI agents.
Fading futures
Companies are already considering eliminating junior positions and replacing them with AI. People with years of experience are no longer considered valuable once their knowhow is turned into code.
That should force people to wonder: “What’s my best-by date?” When will employers decide they can replace you with software? How long can you survive when AI isn’t offered as a tool to improve your productivity but as a replacement for you?
Most of all, what will be sacrificed? If technology undermines the workforce and eliminates workers’ income, who will have any money to buy what the robots and AI produce? Not many. That raises another question: “If no one has the income to buy essentials, let alone discretionary purchases, what will be an industry’s best-by date?" It could be the time when it unintentionally plans its own demise.
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