# Ep. 244 — Thoughts on ChatGPT  ## Metadata - Author: [[Deep Questions with Cal Newport]] - Full Title: Ep. 244 — Thoughts on ChatGPT - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/274d2714-27b6-4d51-9294-cad46d9eab24 ## Highlights - The Future of AI and Knowledge Work Summary: In the coming years, AI will have a significant impact on knowledge work, specifically in the area of shallow task automation. AI tools will take over the mundane tasks involved in collaboration, organization, and information gathering, allowing knowledge workers to focus on their main work. This automation of logistical tasks will greatly increase productivity, as there will be no more interruptions or context switching. The potential benefit is that workers can accomplish three to four times more meaningful output. However, there is a downside to this automation, as it may reduce the number of knowledge workers required to meet production outputs. This disruption could lead to job loss for some. Overall, AI has the potential to transform knowledge work by streamlining processes and increasing productivity, but it may also bring about significant changes in the job market. Transcript: Speaker 2 All right, next question is from Aiden. It seems almost inevitable that in 10 years AI will be able to perform many knowledge workers' jobs as well as a human. Should we be worried about the pace of automation and knowledge work and how can we prepare our careers now for increased power AI in the coming decades? Speaker 1 So as I just explained in the last question, this particular trajectory of AI technology is not about to take all of your jobs. There is, however, in this way, I included this question. There is, however, another potential intersection of artificial intelligence and knowledge work that I've been talking about for years that I think we should be more concerned about Or at least keep a closer eye on. The place where I think AI is going to have the big impact is less sexy than this notion of I just have this blinking chat cursor and I can ask this thing to do whatever I want. You know, where it's really going to intersect is shallow task automation. So the shallow work, the stuff we do, the overhead we do to help collaborate, organize, and gather the information need for the main deep work that we execute in our knowledge work jobs. More and more of that is going to be taken over by less sexy, more bespoke, bespoke, but increasingly more effective AI tools. And as these tools get better, I don't have to send 126 emails a day anymore because I can actually have a bespoke AI agent handle a lot of that work for me, not in a general, it's intelligent Sense, but in a much more specific, like talking to Alexa type sense. Can you gather the data I need for writing this report? Can you set up a meeting next week for me with these three principles? And then that AI agent talks to the AI agents of the three people you need to set the meeting up with and they figure out together and put that meeting onto the calendar so that none of us, Three of us have to ever exchange an email. The information it gathers from the people who have it by talking to their AI agents and I never have to bother them. We never have to set up a meeting. It's able to do these road tasks for us, right? This was actually a future that I was exposed to a decade earlier. I spoke at an event with the CEO of an automated meeting scheduling company called x.ai. And I remember him telling me this is the future. When you have an AI tool that can talk to another person's AI tool to figure out logistical things on your behalf so that you're never interrupted. I think that's where the big AI impact is going to come. Now, this does not automate your main work. What it does is it automates a way to stuff that gets in the way of your main work. Why is that significant? Because it will immensely increase the amount of your main work you're able to get done. If you're not context switching once every five minutes, which is the average time the average knowledge worker spins between email or instant messenger checks. If you're not doing that anymore, you know how much you're going to get done? You know how much if you can just do something until you're done and then the AI agents on your computer says, okay, we got the stuff for you for the next thing you need to work on. Here you go. And you have to have no overhead communicating or collaborating and trying to figure out what to do next. You can just execute. You know how much you're going to get done? I would say probably three to four X more of the meaningful output that you produce in your job will be produced three to four X more if these unsexy bespoke AI logistical automator tools Get better. So this has this huge potential benefit and this huge potential downside. The benefit of course is your work is less exhausting. You can get a lot more done. Companies are going to generate a lot more value. The downside is that might greatly reduce the number of knowledge workers required to meet certain production outputs. If three knowledge workers now produce what it used to take 10, I could grow my company or I could fire seven of those knowledge workers. So I think this is going to create a disruption. We underestimate the degree to which shallow work and context shifting is completely hampering our ability to do work with our minds. ([Time 1:02:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6dd042f7-3773-4566-bb36-baed1d2fca37))