Sunday Setup
A weekly newsletter to help get your mind set up for a positive workweek.
02.23.2025 — There’s a Bot for That
Computer Love
Unless you've been living under a rock, you don't need me to tell you about the colossal impact two simple letters have made on society. A.I. is as ubiquitous as pharmaceutical drug commercials, and some of its side effects are just as concerning.
Take, for example, the self-driving taxi that got lost in an airport parking lot, or the fact that ChatGPT consumes 4 glasses of water for every 100 words it produces. For better or for worse, robots are here.
But even before the recent uptick in A.I. adoption, computers had already infiltrated just about every facet of life because we humans can be a lazy bunch. Every civilization throughout history evolved because someone thought, "there's gotta be a better way to do [fill in the blank]." But where does it stop?
Last week Major League Baseball announced plans to introduce robot umpires and a war robot performed a 30-minute DJ set at a night club. So, with the T-1000 spinning the 0's and 1's at Westworld parties and C-3PO calling walks behind home plate, is any job sacred?
In five years, Roy Batty will be working a crisis hotline while The Borg headlines the Netflix Is A Joke Fest. Resistance is futile.
Ch-Ch-Ch Changes
In science there are all kinds of constants. The speed of light in a vacuum is always gonna be 299,792,458 meters per second. Gravitational acceleration will always be 9.8 meters per second squared. The Beyhive is always gonna swarm for Beyonce and Swifties are always gonna defend Taylor.
But in life, the only constant is change.
Who remembers standing in a long line at the bank to withdraw cash for the weekend? Or getting a workout from cranking a mimeograph to copy paper? Or cruising — more like crawling — the internet at the blazing speed of 33.6 Kbps over the phone line? Those were the days!
But over time, outside ATMs replaced those inside lines, Xerox became synonymous with copies, and fiber optic lines made one second feel like a lifetime to wait for a webpage to load. Obviously, not all change is bad.
Sometimes in corporate America, when a new or revised policy doesn't sit well with the majority of the workforce — think return to office mandates — frustration caused by a perceived lack of respect, trust, or understanding ensues. Eventually, disparaging conversations about management end up perpetuating the distrust that breeds apathy and lowers morale.
When it comes to new policies or challenging situations at work, we really only have three options:
Acceptance
Change
Leave
Granted, if you work within a large enterprise, you might not have much control over option two, and option three might not be financially feasible. So that leaves acceptance, which may be a bitter pill to swallow. However, the more you "fight" change with negativity, the more harm you cause yourself mentally.
You don't have to love new corporate policies that seem to defy common sense, but if you intend to remain employed by the company that implemented said new policies, you do have to find a way to accept them. In the end, policies tend to change over time after further review because — again — the only constant is change.
And if you’re worried about robots replacing humans everywhere, don’t be. As efficient as they may be at completing tasks, they’ll never replace the human connection we generate with each other through emotions like empathy.
Be human.