Cooking Slowly – A Tale of Ever-Changing Times
There is an old adage that if you put a live frog in a pot of water and heated it gradually, that frog would just sit in the water and not jump away (even though it could) until the water boils and it is thoroughly cooked. It may or may not be true (no one has really tried it since the late 1880s), but either way it is an excellent metaphor for certain things. Some authors have been concerned about the replacement of people with robots, automatic tellers, and other types of automation in the workplace because of the associated loss of jobs (1). This is one concern, but I want to focus on another. It is about humanity and interpersonal connection and how dealing with machines instead of people all day may be changing us and our culture. Changes slowly creep into our lives unnoticed, and before we realize it, like the proverbial frog in a pot of slowly warming water, we become cooked (or otherwise harmed). Ten years ago, when I first occupied the office I am in now, I would drive to the parking garage and greet the guy in the booth who handed out tickets to…