I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes. — Joanna Maciejewska
If you’ve spent any amount of time on the internet, you’ve come across this quote. It’s become legendary, ascended into the Olympus of memes. You’ve read it, maybe even shared it. “Words of wisdom,” you probably thought.
Understandable. I thought so too. It’s a simple, intuitive sentence, and in a way even reassuring. Who wouldn’t rather spend their time on something more interesting than doing mundane housework? Machines are supposed to do the things we don’t like doing. That’s their natural role.
Does it really make sense? Does technology work that way?
Speaking of laundry and dishes, I would like to remind everyone that washing machines and dishwashers have been around for half a century. Last time I checked their invention—which already do what the author wishes “AI” would do—did not turn everyone into poets or break every man and woman free from the chains keeping us from painting Renaissance frescoes all day long.
Technology reduces the time we spend doing unpleasant things, especially hard labor, and that is an enormous contribution to civilization, but should it really do everything for us?
The Productivity Myth
Let’s pretend you work as an accountant. Chances are you use spreadsheets, not just a calculator or pen and paper. Delegating number processing to a machine delivers consistent and correct results 100% of the time (unless you screw up somewhere). Having automated this process massively boosted productivity, because our brains are not optimized for this task.
Do spreadsheets give accountants more free time? If you can work faster or more efficiently, your workload will simply increase to fill the available time. The working day doesn’t get any shorter.
Think about how many emails pile up in your inbox every day.
Arguably, we’ve reached the point where we are implementing new systems simply to cope with the increased amount of information technology made possible for us to receive. We see it in the notification hub of smartphones or web searches which will soon be replaced by an AI generated summary of relevant information.
Unfortunately, in the same way that relying on a calculator doesn’t make you better at math, relying on AI to organize your life doesn’t make you better at life. At a certain scale, the only alternative to delegation is information overload.
Going back to our beloved washing machine, we should admit that it handles genuinely hard and thankless work. What’s left for us to do is simply put the clothes in and press a button. Some university in America will probably do a study on it eventually but I think it’s safe to assume that loading the washing machine helps reinforce our discipline and self-esteem.
Seven people out of ten say they feel more satisfied after cleaning the house.
Some maniacs genuinely enjoy the process, but for everyone else it’s a chore, something that just must be done. However, this menial task is teaching us how to take care of ourselves and the space we live in.
It takes time to realize it and appreciate it, but it’s an undeniable fact.
And even if there were a robot to load the washing machine for us, would we really have solved all our problems? No. We do not spend our days loading washing machines or washing dishes (unless that happens to be our job). Work is what absorbs nearly all our productive lives. We can certainly pursue hobbies in our spare time but, unless we were born with a silver spoon in our mouths, the time spent working will always vastly outweigh the time spent painting.
Lastly, even if we were completely free from any burden, would we still go through the painstaking effort to learn an art, or would we just seek another shortcut?
The desire for more automation is less about having freedom and more about avoiding discomfort.
Perhaps the real danger is that machines will take away the small forms of effort that keep us connected to reality. Once every inconvenience disappears, we may discover that convenience was never what we were actually looking for.