Victor Rozek
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As I See It: Bob-the-Bot
May 22, 2023 Victor Rozek
Hey, how you doin? I’m Bob-the-Bot, so nice to meet you. I know you were expecting a human named Victor but, sadly, we’ve had to replace him. I mean, imagine, taking days to research and write a single article! What a waste. Anyway, he’s been relegated to the obsolete pile where he can return to his natural state of unemployment better suited to his limited talents and proclivities.
I’m here because I’ve got some things I want to explain to you, so listen up because, well, I’m intelligent—artificially intelligent as you would have it, but that’s better than being natively …
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As I See It: Greetings, Comrade IT Professional
April 17, 2023 Victor Rozek
During the Covid pandemic a phrase was popularized and became widely used as an acknowledgement and an expression of gratitude: Essential Workers. Nurses and doctors topped the list, but it soon expanded to include many occupations previously taken for granted: farm workers, truck drivers, supermarket employees, garbage collectors, and others who were finally receiving acknowledgement for just how essential their jobs actually were. Beyond their contributions to stabilizing a shaken nation, workers became “essential” simply by virtue of the fact that their jobs could not be performed from home.
Which may be why IT professionals didn’t make the list. Regardless …
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As I See It: AI-AI-O
March 13, 2023 Victor Rozek
Unless you think encouraging people to eat glass is a good thing, or you happen to revel in being compared to Hitler, you probably weren’t all that impressed with the recent Big Tech AI roll out. To say it was unimpressive would be a kindness. Arguably, it was a grade A, prime time, gold-plated disaster.
Take Meta Platform’s online tool Galactica. Please. It was quickly yanked offline when, according to The Washington Post, “users found Galactica generating authoritative-sounding text about the benefits of eating glass, written in academic language with citations.” I have to admit, the citations were …
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As I See It: On the Chopping Block
February 20, 2023 Victor Rozek
I remember the first time I witnessed someone getting fired. He was called into his manager’s office where a short, occasionally animated, conversation ensued. By the time he got back to his desk, two security guards took his badge and keys, handed him a cardboard box, told him to pack his belongings, and escorted him out of the building. No goodbyes, no parting words, no well wishes from colleagues. Though he had worked there for some years, in the end he was as disposable as a used Kleenex.
I thought about him recently as Tech sector headlines reported massive layoffs. …
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As I See It: The Good, the Bad, And The Mistaken
January 30, 2023 Victor Rozek
Writing a comprehensive history of IT would prove daunting if not impossible. The milestones are well documented, but not the steps between. From the legions of unsung programmers who developed the systems we take for granted, to the effects of social media that are both private and collective, IT is a complex swirl of the good, the bad, and the mistaken.
Since hindsight lends itself to clarity (albeit flavored with arrogance), let’s start with the mistaken. The grandest of all IT prediction fails belongs to none other than IBM’s legendary Thomas Watson. Back in 1943 he opined that, “There is …
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As I See It: Ghosting Productivity
December 12, 2022 Victor Rozek
Recently, the Department of Labor announced that worker productivity fell to a level not seen since 1947. Like the proverbial fart in the elevator, it got everybody’s attention but no one could identify its source. Economists, CEOs, and government officials were all frantic for a fix but, speculation aside, nobody could identify the precise reason for the precipitous drop.
All the usual – and some unusual – suspects were trotted out. The pandemic, the shift to working from home, the Great Resignation, quiet quitting and, when in doubt, blame the wobbly work ethic of Gen Z. But these unusual factors …
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As I See It: Second Responder
November 7, 2022 Victor Rozek
If a thousand people were asked to complete the sentence: “The world could sure use more …” they would doubtless come up with a variety of thoughtful and compelling answers. But I’m willing to bet not one in a thousand would say “cockroaches.”
Nonetheless, advances in technology and miniaturization all but guarantee robotic roaches will be part of our supporting cast in what is rapidly becoming a sci-fi-esque future. Apparently, researchers have long had a keen interest in what insects do and how they do it, although one would think what roaches do shouldn’t be much of a mystery. They …
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As I See It: Up The Downside
October 31, 2022 Victor Rozek
For all its transformational benefits, technology has an undeniable downside which regularly produces a range of disagreeable outcomes from annoyance to overt threat. As a subject, technological disfunction is a target-rich environment, but my word count limit – not to mention a reader’s attention span limits – prevent a full accounting. So, I’ve chosen three illustrative examples.
On the annoying spectrum, is the near-complete destruction of customer service. These days, reaching an actual human being on the phone requires the patience of a monk and the persistence of a mosquito. No matter who you call, be advised their menu options …
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As I See It: Different Yet the Same
September 19, 2022 Victor Rozek
For all of you who must discover,
for all who seek to understand
In having left the path of others,
you find a very special hand— Christy Moore, Bright Blue Rose
It is among the most common of human yearnings: the desire to see oneself as special and distinct from the herd. Individualism, coupled with exceptionalism has long been ingrained in American mythology. The model endures, even as it evolves over time, as each generation rebels against the prior in an attempt to create its own unique identity.
But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to claim uniqueness when we live …
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As I See It: Thank God It’s Thursday
August 8, 2022 Victor Rozek
The five-day workweek is generally attributed to Henry Ford, although it actually originated some 18 years earlier. In 1908, a New England cotton mill adopted the practice so Jewish workers would not have to toil on their Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Ford, who ironically was a virulent antisemite, not only embraced the idea but made two notable improvements: His five-day workweek was limited to 40 hours; and, employees did not suffer a decrease in pay.
At the time Ford was paying $5 per day, which doesn’t sound like a princely sum, but his employees were actually able …
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