To the Editor:
AI … Evolutionary? Progress? Threatening? Reality?
No matter what we think about AI, it is a ”reality”.
For the last couple of years, I have been comparing AI to the start of the last major change that impacted millions of jobs around the world, and how it rejigged how everything had been done for decades before into a whole new world that today we just take for granted.
In 1959, I left high school and found my way into a massive office with more than 500 men and women dressed in proper business attire every day. As an 18-year-old Junior accounting clerk, I wore a white shirt and tie, while the young women in the office wore dresses, or skirts and blouses. We sat and worked in rows of 6 to 10 from 8 to 5 each day, with one hour off for lunch. Every month-end, we worked on Saturday for two weeks to prepare all of the month-end and year-to-date reports. On my desk sat a Commodore machine for adding and subtracting, and a Friden calculator for doing multiplications and divisions. Some of the ladies had been trained as comptometer operators with machines that could accumulate multiply numbers up to 10 million. Every day, we had large stacks of manually prepared production and inventory management documents to prepare into journals, which became vouches that were posted into ledgers.
Then, one day, an air-conditioned room, about 40 feet square, was built about 50 feet behind me. Many large boxes with the letters IBM printed on them arrived, and a 1401 “variable-wordlength decimal computer” arrived. The 15 years that followed revolutionized how clerical functions in all areas of manufacturing, business, government, etc. were carried out. I had progressed through a wide range of positions and remember one in particular. I became the “Production Ledger” keeper for what then was the largest tire manufacturing plant in Canada. About 20 to 30 clerks prepared journals each day that were recapped into vouchers, which I
then posted into ledgers divided into storerooms and production departments. In this way, we controlled the flow and value of goods and were able to calculate the costs of operating this 1.1 million square foot factory.
Of course, debits were posted in black and credits in red. Straight pens with sharp, pointed metal nibs, with bottled ink for both colours were required. Ledgers were treated as a work of art. They were a direct reflection of “you”. The clarity and the perfection of your ability to form numbers were “noticed”. Every day started with replenishing the ink and making sure the necessary ink blotters were readily available. Each day was similar to the previous one.
It was, post similar journals to the same pages, accumulating the value of the movement of materials and components through the plant from department to department. At month end, prepare reports for the month, with comparisons to previous periods and also performance to budget.
I became a conduit for change in our factory accounting group and worked with the computer programmers as we, step by step, limited more and more of the mundane clerical functions. Eventually, our work group became “cost analysts” and played a more important role in improving production processes and lowering product costs. Yes, positions were eliminated, mostly by attrition, many of us were retrained. Our roles changed, and the company benefited.
More than 60 years have passed since this time. When I look at how our world has changed since the arrival of the IBM 1401 in 1959, I wonder today if AI can make an even greater change and improve things even more than the computer age did.
What will be, will be.
G. William Streeter November 1, 2025
Southampton
