On May Day, It Feels Like the Same Story, Just Retold

In the early phases of industrialization, machines increased output but also set the pace of work. Productivity rose, yet control and benefits stayed with those who owned the system. Workers adapted. The structure did not.

I see a similar pattern unfolding in a quieter form.

In my own work, the use of AI is not enforced, but it is strongly encouraged. Emails from HR talk about how AI can elevate our work, and in many ways, it is. I know how much faster things move now, how ideas come together more easily, how tasks that used to take hours now take minutes.

But somewhere along the way, AI at work becomes more than efficiency. Doing more, and doing it faster, becomes normal, and the work does not just get easier, it expands to fill the space that efficiency creates. We produce more and faster, while also carrying part of the cost, time, learning, even subscriptions. The output grows, but how that value is distributed does not seem to follow. The system adjusts around efficiency, but the benefits seem to settle elsewhere.

Output increases, turnaround shortens, but compensation does not seem to move with it, and...

it leads back to a familiar question.

Who benefits the most?