AI was supposed to unleash us from the shackles of boring, repetitive tasks. How’s that working for ya? A recent WSJ article reports that rather than reducing the speed, density, and complexity of work, the opposite is happening. The report details a study by ActivTrak, a productivity tracking analytics company (scary enough). After looking at 164,000 workers, they found that rather than think and create, workers have simply adapted their habits to include more busy work: e-mailing, messaging, and using chat apps.

Likening it to a shovel used to dig your own grave, this week’s New York Magazine tells the story of the modern-day AI sweatshop—a place where overqualified graduates and professionals teach AI how to replace them, all for a paltry, less-than-minimum wage. A must-read that will make you seriously consider telling your children to become plumbers.

And just sayin’ that the US lost 92,000 jobs in February. You can’t blame the cold for everything, and some is just economic uncertainty, but AI is creeping in for those jobs and we’re all teaching it how. 

But it is not just the broken promise that AI will save your precious time. It’s how AI is inserting itself into your personal life. Get this! I had a Gmail problem this week because they’re migrating away from checking email from other accounts. Natch, getting someone from Google to answer your tech question is sort of like getting an audience with the Pope. So I turned to AI (Gemini), which offered a reasonable but complicated workaround to my problem. Then I asked, “Where can I find a tech expert to help me?” Gemini’s answer floored me. “Based on your email correspondence,“ it answered, “here are three people that seem qualified.” Whaaattt??? 

Gmail has also fallen into the habit of using AI to summarize all of my emails, even the one-liners. That’s because I turned on a feature called Smart Features in Google Workspace. Who wouldn’t want to be smarter? The smart features help me organize my mailbox, automatically track my flights and packages, and do a pretty good job at autocompleting my sentences. The rate at which Google is adding smart features into Gmail, Docs, Slides, and other apps is breathtaking. 

But, according to the wisdom of the crowd at the Google Support Community it’s not so easy to turn off AI mail summaries without forfeiting some of your other smart features. Have you turned on your Smart Features yet? When they are good, they are very, very good, but when they are bad, they are terrifying. 

SISO Conference
I didn’t attend the  Society of Independent Show Organizers conference, but I heard good things. One voice to watch is Ben Schreiner, SISO speaker, and Head of AI and Emerging Data Systems at AWS. Events, he says, exist to create value through connections. But as technologies and expectations shift, it doesn’t get any easier. Sharon Roessen, audience attendee, summed up his talk like this: 

🔹The next generation is comfortable sharing data if it leads to better, faster, more personalised experiences.

🔹 AI amplifies human capability. Used well, it becomes a thought partner, helping teams prepare, analyse data, and make better decisions.

🔹 Data is the untapped asset in events. From visitor flow to engagement patterns, there is huge potential to understand behaviour and optimise experiences.

🔹 The biggest risk is thinking too small. Most leaders underestimate how transformative AI will be. The organisations that experiment, learn quickly, and scale what works will win.

Your Handwriting, Your Font
Tip of the Week: Claude can turn your handwriting into your personal font. I think that most of our handwriting would be illegible, although that might be fun, too. All you need to do is write out the alphabet and numbers in your handwriting. Scan the image and upload it to Claude. Next, prompt Claude to analyze the image, segment each letter, and use Python to generate a downloadable font file. 

Moltbook Might Have Been A Party Trick
Until it wasn’t. Meta spent an undisclosed sum to acquire Moltbook, the work of Ben Parr (who has appeared on our podcasts) and Matt Schlicht, for developing an environment where AI chatbots live, talk and collaborate (or not) amongst themselves. No humans required. Moltbook is now part of Meta’s SuperIntelligence Lab. Any bets on why Meta spent? 

Happy Birthday, Boomer
To celebrate Apple’s 50th, you’ll want to read Wired’s excerpt from David Pogue’s new book Apple: The First 50 Years.  David is a friend of VEG and we’re happy to see this new work from him.