The mass layoffs and economic uncertainty that are happening today are part of a process that’s well underway. If you’re one of my readers, chances are really good that it’s going to upend your life in the near future, if it hasn’t already started to do so.
A brief history of computers
For the last 100 years, there have been a lot of jobs that involved computers. The early days of computing (WWI and WWII) involved “human computers” (who were mostly women) doing mathematical operations to produce map grids, surveying aids, navigation tables and artillery tables. When the first programmable computer, the ENIAC, was built in 1945, some of these human computers because the first computer programmers. There was a PBS documentary about these women that came out in 2010.
Electronic computers quickly made human computers obsolete, just as happened with human switchboard operators at around the same time due to mechanical and electronic switching systems. The human role was a temporary solution. It’s happening again right now, except now it’s the human “computer helpers” that are going to be replaced.
I’m going to talk about how this is happening and what I think we can and should do moving forward. I’m putting the rest of this newsletter behind the paywall, because of reasons I explain in the rest of the newsletter. But, please consider at least signing up for the free 7-day trial of the paid version of my newsletter.
