Why Alistair still has a job in the Automation Age

New Technology, Old Questions

The Anthropic Economic Index is an analysis of over 4 million anonymised conversations on Claude.ai. The primary use of the chatbot is for software development and writing tasks. 37% of all queries to Claude are from people in Computer and Mathematical occupations.

Are we shocked that technology is used by the technically minded? Perhaps more interesting is that around one third of occupations use Claude for at least a quarter of their tasks. The majority of queries are about assisting rather than replacing human activity. For now, the threat to jobs lies with those who don’t use LLMs, not those who do.

When considering any new technology, we start by reviewing our business purpose. This means asking what question do we answer for clients. Then ask how we do it. Then ask how we spend our time.

The Real Reason Clients Use Brokers

Many years ago in Singapore I had a roommate who was a ship broker. Alistair, one of the lads at the rugby club, used to tease him that he was paid for what he did. Alistair worked on remote operated vehicles repairing underwater pipelines and boasted he was paid for what he knew. I told myself that as an analyst I was paid for what I thought.

You go to a ship broker to move things by sea. Your goal is the most cargo space for the least money and to deliver on time. If you could arrange that with a chatbot you would, provided you knew there was recourse if anything went wrong.

There again, human brokers are hard to kill. My first analyst job in London was looking at financial services companies. My manager was convinced human brokers would die out within five years. I won’t tell you what the top ranked analyst told me was the reason traders used a broker, but it had to do with the nature of late night entertainment. The robots don’t yet provide that service and humans are still brokers 30 years later.

The Nature of Jobs Keeps Evolving

The first question to ask about automation is why do clients buy from me? An alternative phrasing is what is the job clients hire me to do? If you work for a manager then think of them as the client.

The second question is how do I work? The third is what elements of the job do I not need to do? Think of this final question in the context of the Pareto Principle, or the 80:20 rule. What 20% of tasks cause me 80% of stress. Can you automate, delegate or stop doing them? Then ask what 20% of tasks generate 80% of my value? Your purpose is to free as much time as possible to focus on these tasks.

If you run a design agency, clients hire your creativity. It does not matter whether you draw by hand or with digital tools, your flair is the reason you are paid. Automation will boost your productivity, but the knowledge that adds the most value is in your head. You should not be scrolling emails, filing documents, or doing your taxes if you can avoid it.

If you drive a truck, your clients pay you to deliver goods from one place to another. They are indifferent to who drives provided the delivery is on time and in tact. Your whole job, rather than a part of it, will be automated away once the technology is cheap enough. The clients buy the knowledge of how to get from A to B at lowest cost, not the knowledge of how to drive.

There are fewer stock market analysts than when I was working in the role. This is in part due to regulation and part the passive nature of a lot of investing. The role is evolving too.

Machines spot more patterns in the data and do it faster than humans. They can generate multiple forecasts in the blink of an eye and in seconds search hundreds of records for similar situations. The thinking job is now about how to weigh the likelihood of potential scenarios and express the trade in the most cost effective manner. Analysis is about creativity rather than process.

I lost contact with Alistair years ago. I am certain he no longer operates underwater ROVs. But he may well design and train them, pushing the boundaries of what they can do and where they can go. His role has evolved into answering the next question that clients are going to ask, rather than the one they just did.

Staying in Control

I still work with brokers. A lot of this work is about cheaper ways of delivering technology, as well as automating tasks. It is the pricing of services that has evolved. Developers are no longer paid by how much they work they do, but whether they deliver projects on time and to standard. The clients care about a value added outcome. The decision to code or let Claude do it, is down to the developer.

The ability to control their future is why software developers send the most queries to LLMs.

Questions to Ask and Answer

1. What is the task that my clients or boss hire me to do?

2. Is what I do a means to an end or an end in itself?

3. What roles may be automated without affecting the value I provide?

When you are ready there are three ways I can help:

1. Schedule a call to chat or ask questions about AI with my tech team.

2. Resolving Team Conflicts: A free email course tackling an issue that no one teaches you as a manager.

3. The Profit Through Process Planner: My flagship course on how to design and invigorate a business that scales. I share 30 years of experience of researching, investing in and running companies, intermingled with the science and stories of business.