Possible transformation of civilization marketed alongside calendar integration and automatic meeting notes
SEATTLE – Humanity reached an important milestone this week after developing increasingly capable artificial-intelligence systems potentially significant enough to transform civilization, then categorizing them under the exciting corporate label productivity software.
The latest public discussion of A.I. risks appears here.
Nothing Calms Existential Anxiety Like Microsoft Office Vocabulary
Nothing calms existential anxiety like Microsoft Office vocabulary.
Productivity software sounds harmless.
Spreadsheets are productivity software.
Calendars are productivity software.
The little red line telling you “definately” is spelled wrong is productivity software.
A system capable of reasoning across vast amounts of information and independently performing digital tasks is apparently also productivity software.
Humanity has a gift for naming powerful things in reassuring ways.
Bombs become devices.
Mass layoffs become workforce optimization.
Price increases become adjustments.
A machine capable of reorganizing intellectual labor becomes a copilot.
Nobody fears the copilot.
The copilot sounds like a friendly person named Steve who reminds you about landing gear.
Never Say “Potential Autonomous Cognitive Infrastructure”: The Marketing Playbook
Marketing departments understand this instinct.
Never call a system Potential Autonomous Cognitive Infrastructure.
Call it Assist.
Never say, “This system may fundamentally alter labor markets.”
Say, “Get more done.”
Never say, “Humans may become dependent on automated reasoning.”
Say, “Save time.”
Suddenly civilization feels fine.
Corporate employees love time-saving tools because modern work contains remarkable amounts of time intentionally wasted by previous productivity tools.
Email was supposed to improve communication.
It created more communication.
Chat software was supposed to reduce email.
It created chat plus email.
Meetings were supposed to coordinate work.
They created pre-meetings and post-meetings.
Project-management software was supposed to organize tasks.
Now maintaining the project-management software is one of the tasks.
Artificial intelligence arrives promising to summarize the entire disaster.
Workers cheer.
If Nobody Wants the Meeting, Why Did the Meeting Exist?
One company advertised an A.I. tool capable of summarizing meetings automatically.
Nobody asked the obvious question:
If nobody wants to attend the meeting and everyone wants a machine-generated summary afterward, why did the meeting exist?
The software industry has no incentive to investigate.
That would destroy several subscription categories.
Instead, productivity software creates productivity reports proving productivity software improves productivity.
Employees use the report as evidence in meetings.
Machines summarize the meetings.
Perfect ecosystem.
Researchers raise broader questions about how much decision-making people should delegate.
Corporate managers translate the question into workflow terminology.
“Can it make recommendations?”
Yes.
“Can it prioritize?”
Yes.
“Can it assign tasks?”
Yes.
“Can it evaluate performance?”
Possibly.
“Wonderful. Put it in Teams.”
The Sparkle Icon Beside “Government”
Civilization has thus managed to place potentially profound technology beside the button for changing paragraph spacing.
This may be psychologically important.
Humans rarely accept revolutionary change if introduced as revolutionary change.
They accept it when it appears in the toolbar.
A little sparkle icon appears beside “Insert.”
Click.
History changes.
Another sparkle appears beside “Reply.”
Click.
Half of professional correspondence becomes automated.
Eventually there may be a sparkle beside “Government.”
Nobody notices until Thursday.
The term productivity itself deserves scrutiny.
Productive toward what?
More output?
More profit?
More leisure?
More human flourishing?
More documents describing productivity?
Machines can optimize whatever objective humans provide.
The problem is humans often confuse measurable activity with meaningful progress.
An A.I. could generate 6,000 reports per minute.
Productivity would explode.
Nobody would read them.
This already sounds familiar.
Maybe the machines are aligned after all.
Does A.I. Actually Boost Productivity? What Economists Say
Economists have long puzzled over whether new technology shows up in the numbers. The productivity paradox describes the observation that heavy investment in information technology did not immediately produce matching productivity gains, and national statistics on output per hour are published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Stanford A.I. Index collects studies on how generative A.I. tools affect worker output, with results that vary by task and skill level. The workplace habit of stretching work to fill the time is captured in Parkinson’s law, and productivity software has been promising to defeat it since the first spreadsheet.
The naming game is a real linguistic phenomenon too. Words soften as they become associated with unpleasant realities, a pattern called the euphemism treadmill. Meanwhile, researchers in A.I. safety and organizations such as the Center for AI Safety argue that systems able to act on their own deserve more scrutiny than a spell-checker. Whether the sparkle icon makes you faster or just busier is an empirical question, and one worth measuring before the sparkle reaches “Government.”
Satire Disclaimer
This is satire. A.I. systems can be useful productivity tools, and their capabilities and risks vary widely. The comedy comes from the contrast between potentially profound technological change and the wonderfully beige corporate language used to sell it. This story is entirely a human collaboration between two sentient beings – the world’s oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer.
SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/opinion/letters/ai-threats-risks.html
Fiona MacLeod is a student writer whose satire draws on cultural observation and understated humour. Influenced by London’s academic and creative spaces, Fiona’s writing reflects curiosity and thoughtful comedic restraint.
Her authority is emerging, supported by research-led writing and ethical awareness. Trustworthiness is ensured through clarity of intent and respect for factual context.
Fiona represents a responsible new voice aligned with EEAT standards.
