The Unfinished Revolution by Michael Dertouzos
I’ve just started re-eading a book written in 2000 and published in 2001 , By Michael Dertouzos. In the book, the author points out how the information revolution we were expecting, to make work easier, has not come to fruition.
I think we have gotten used to have a complex it is, but if you think about it, if you write a document that you want to send to somebody, you have to save it, then create an email and attach your document to the email. Then you need to find where you’ve saved it, and sometimes that can be confusing.
So far, the author has been spot on with his predictions. In 2000, the author predicted that instead of buying boxes of software, we would be renting it, using the Internet to download it. Adobe software, Microsoft office, CAD software, it’s all going subscription. The author was right. Now I’m keen to read on and see what else we have got to look forward to.
I can see that AI will make it a lot easier for us to do this work, maybe AI is the unfinished revolution solution that we need.
We were promised that the computers would make our lives so much easier, but this makes it sound more complex.
For example, I need to create a document and send it to a client. I need to write the document in one program, use another program to fact check what I’m saying, use another program to check my spelling and grammar, and then use yet another program to email it to my client.
Now if I had a intelligent assistant, I would say to that and assistant please create a document that explains what we need to say to a client, and send it to the client.
The AI could also check the spelling and grammar, fact check what we’ve said, and ensure that we have the right tone for the document. I think this is the future of chatGPT.