This commercial is a fascinating snapshot of the anxiety around automation in the early 90s. The rhetorical question posed - "why would we need the man who took an hour?" - captures the raw fear of technological displacement. Yet 35 years later, we've learned that speed isn't the full equation. The human who took an hour might have been doing critical thinking, verifying assumptions, or catching errors that a microsecond calculation would miss. The real value shift has been humans moving from calculators to decision-makers.
Great post Maurizio - AI is a normal technology. Soon enough we will see the new work and value that it generates when we automate portion of the old.
This commercial is a fascinating snapshot of the anxiety around automation in the early 90s. The rhetorical question posed - "why would we need the man who took an hour?" - captures the raw fear of technological displacement. Yet 35 years later, we've learned that speed isn't the full equation. The human who took an hour might have been doing critical thinking, verifying assumptions, or catching errors that a microsecond calculation would miss. The real value shift has been humans moving from calculators to decision-makers.
ok
10/10 dude. Great old school Excel commercial reference too
That commercial is amazing. 4 minutes and you want to see how it ends!!