Why AIs which focus on the hero might not develop the skills
In the story of John Henry vs the railroad machines, an aspect is overlooked in the framing of the tale as one purely of Henry’s peak human strength and endurance. In steel driving, one person, the ‘Driver’ role of John Henry here, swung the heavy hammer while his partner, the ‘Shaker’ or ‘Turner’, held the steel drill and rotated it slightly between each blow. It was this rotation which was crucial in preventing the drill from becoming stuck. Theirs was a job of skill and trust, as a 20-pound hammer was repeatedly driven with huge force by their partner.
Machines of the era were limited in their ability to replicated this nuanced coordination. Early steam drills could exert the enormous force and delivery blows with tireless repetition, but lacked the senses and adaptive intelligence to adjust for the specific and changeable rock conditions.
The legend celebrates John Henry’s strength, but if the real advantage was the shaker’s adaptive skill, then the story takes on new meaning today, when almost all workers face the prospect of being John Henry facing a tireless machine designed to replace them. As a civilization we simply can’t compete to the point of death just to prove ourselves. This is one side of a huge social problem.
The other side is, that AI deployment might focus on the raw strength and endurance of a John Henry and, in a few iterations, become an unbeatable replacement. But there is a danger these deployments might miss the need for a Shaker, leading to inefficient or dangerous deployment of technology. Alternatively, a machine could be deployed without an understanding or consideration of how humans had learned to interact safely in their respective roles. Behaviours passed between actual workers, perhaps even management are not aware of, keep our organizations running every day. A machine built to a formal metric might lack the finesse to understand how to operate alongside remaining human workers. We may face an era where machines are measurably superior on paper – faster, cheaper, more consistent – yet still fundamentally unprepared for the full complexity of the work.
If we automate only the Driver’s hammer-swinging, we might eliminate the Shaker role entirely (losing crucial adaptive skill) or leave human Shakers working alongside an AI that doesn’t understand the rhythms and signals that kept the original team safe and productive.
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