Speeding up the past, or inventing the present

This essay argues that most people use AI to speed up the past, doing the work that was already being done with less effort, and that the larger change lies in work that was never worth doing before. Drawing on the author's experience of starting out in marketing a month after ChatGPT was released, it explains why even people with no habits from before AI repeat the past: a profession hands down its list of tasks along with its methods, and whatever is missing from that list never comes up. It gives examples from personal software and from client reporting, describes how routine services become features of larger offerings, and discusses age, junior roles and how judgment is formed when the work is no longer done by hand. It closes with the bet that companies will spend the time they free up on clients, services and projects they could not afford before.