Teleoperated Humans

When I look at why I expect the world to change a lot in the next few years, and why other people expect slower changes, I think a big component is disagreement on the extent to which AI will affect non-computer work. Sure, progamming has sped up massively with Claude Code etc, and models like Astra seem posed to make similar changes to work with spreadsheets and other common business tools, but what work that doesn't include computers at all? memorize the map with enough work, but even then you won't have real-time street-by-street traffic information. AI solved this problem so well we don't even call it "AI" anymore. On the other hand, driving is a realtime control problem in an unconstrained environment where people die if you screw up and you can't even always safely stop. This makes it hard to automate, but also would make it impractical for an AI to guide non-drivers through the process. The only reason Uber etc have been able to commodify driving as they have is that so many people already know how to drive. Thinking about where else we might see this, most AI use today looks a lot like management. You figure out what you want it to do, and describe in detail. It asks you some questions up front and others while it works. After some churning you get some a work product to assess. Maybe there's more back-and-forth, or maybe it's good as is. You set strategy and give context; the AI handles the implementation. Today's AI is normally only applied to the implementation to the extent that the task can happen fully within the computer. In cases when the AI can't physically, legally, or intellectually do something, the most efficient path to completing the task will often be the for the AI to handle strategy while delegating to a human to fill these gaps. To illustrate what this delegation pattern can look like, let's look at how I recently got by Whistle Synth app into the Mac App Store. At a high level, I set the strategy: "Can you walk me through the process of getting this into the Mac App Store?" But everything after that was either handled by the AI or delegated back to me. It handled included figuring out what tasks needed to be done, modifying the implementation to be compatible with the App Store restrictions, building the app, and giving me instructions. And then it delegated to me to record a demo video involving whistling (physical), register as a Mac Developer (legal), and clean up its App Store description (intellectual). This was mostly pure instruction-following on my part: I was being teleoperated. Here's one example: Claude Code: Open the Profiles list https://developer.apple.com/account/resources/profiles/list — sign in with the account for [team]. Click the blue + next to "Profiles". You land on "Register a New Provisioning Profile", a page of radio buttons grouped into Development and Distribution sections. Under Distribution, select "Mac App Store Connect". Not "Developer ID" — that's for distributing outside the store. Click Continue. ... This was relatively mindless work for me. Just like being navigated through a city I don't expect to return to, I didn't bother trying to learn how this worked. I was loosely paying attention to make sure I wasn't doing anything dumb, but for future more capable systems I expect people to stop even paying that much attention. Once it finished walking me through submission I had to wait a few days for review. It was accepted in the first round with no reviewer comments. This is a pretty big deal: App Store rules are notoriously complex, the reviewers very picky, and as a first-time amateur Mac developer there's no way I would have gotten this all right on the first attempt pre-AI. Even though this was an almost entirely within-computers case, the important thing here is the pattern: by following AI instructions I did something that would have taken me a ton of work to learn how to do alone. Note that in this case I was both doing the high level strategy ("put this in the app store") and filling in gaps for the AI (clicking a blue plus in App Store Connect). As "teleoperation" becomes more common I expect some of this, as people automate away parts of their jobs. Other times I expect it will look like, for example, a highly AI-pilled startup founder directing AIs that direct employees. A lot like gig workers "below the API" today. I expect early iterations of these jobs to be frustrating, with the AI not delegating well. Then, as AIs get sufficiently good at directing and anticipating, they'll be pretty mindless, for better or worse, as you stop needing to think for yourself at all. What sort of jobs might switch to being teleoperation? The top candidates are any where the physical motions are relatively straightforward, timing is not critical, and people today are paid a lot for their knowledge and judgement. If you had an expert looking over your shoulde