this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2026
936 points (97.7% liked)
Technology
88725 readers
3836 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Capitalism has been doing that long before LLM'S.
How do you call bs on one person doing the work that used to take two? It was one person and an intern.
Every company had a secretary pool 60 years ago before word processors allowed people to type by themselves without an extra support person.
aka 'Productivity increase'
Productivity has increased for decades without much of it going to wage increases. Instead, it's gone to the companies/shareholders
People could have always learned to type, that part didn’t change much with the switch to computers. I think they just liked having secretaries around back in the day and were willing to pay for it.
Typing quickly on a mechanical typewriter is a skill not easily mastered. It's not just the typing, it is the extreme accuracy needed. There's no backspace and no cut and paste. A letter covered in white out isn't acceptable.
I have a few mechanical typewriters I got into as a hobby, it’s not that hard. This is where I’m just like, skill issue. People didn’t want to type, they just liked having secretaries around and were willing to pay for it. Back in the 70’s and earlier they literally thought typing was “women’s work” like sewing because it required high levels of manual dexterity that big tough men were obviously incapable of.
Well that's everything. If you are an expert you can do it quickly and accurately. Everyone else needs to take more time and will make mistakes. Word Processing software means a single typo doesn't ruin ten minutes of typing. It enabled regular people without skill to type well enough to do the work themselves.