Is Generative AI a Leisure-Class Pastime?

Thinking about why the boss and other big-picture people like AI better than the rank and file

Image: DALL-E 3. Prompt: “Depict a Rube Goldberg machine for cracking an egg” The result is interesting, though as a response to the prompt, it’s a failure.

Years ago I worked for a few months as an editor in the Opinion section of the New York Times, filling in for someone on maternity leave. Our workday had two different modes. One was sitting around, sometimes with our feet up on our desks, discussing the great issues and ideas of the day, and how we might get this or that person to write something interesting. The other was the opposite: frantic typing, calling and faxing (it was a long time ago). The deadline pressed, and you had to go quickly but accurately through a constant back and forth with author and other editors about details (is this person’s title correct? where can we remove 100 words?), in time to get a piece edited, headlined and published.

I suspect a lot of white-collar work divides this way: Times of conversation, mental play and creativity, and times of mental and…