Productivity, Not Panic: A Smarter AI Future

Artificial intelligence provokes two extremes: utopian hype and dystopian fear. Both miss the real story. AI is a general-purpose technology — powerful, yes, but valuable only when paired with human judgment, institutional trust and a clear sense of purpose.

Panic about AI often assumes that a job is one indivisible task. This column instead follows the work of a fictional planning officer: reading submissions, checking rules, speaking with residents and weighing competing needs. Only some of those activities can sensibly be accelerated by an automated assistant.

A productivity policy should therefore ask what people can do with the time released. Faster document preparation could mean better public explanations and shorter queues, provided workloads and incentives support that outcome. Measuring service quality alongside volume makes augmentation a practical objective rather than a reassuring slogan.

Illustrated inaugural edition · Fictional editorial copy