So What, Who Cares (vol 2, issue 56) How your job is about to become part of your quantified self

Hello! I am writing this right after one of the most bizarre culinary experiences of my life, i.e. having a flourless chocolate cake that was actually really bad. I previously did not think such a thing was possible, yet I've just lived it.

Have you ever had a food item that should have been foolproof but failed in new and baffling ways? Share your culinary tales of horror (Twitter or email) and let me know if it's okay to share with everyone else here at So What, Who Cares?

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We all know the robots are coming for our jobs -- and we're the ones giving them the data to learn better and replace us sooner (vol 2, issue 25). But how does that data affect the jobs we're doing now? One reporter at Buzzfeed did the stunt of "quantifying" her work for a week and using the experience to interview software makers about the products and how workers react to having their boss able to amass a data profile of their activities around the clock, i.e. even when they're out of the office. The people who traffic in human resources consulting say that employees like being tracked because they're all relentlessly eager to use the data to become better workers:

“People don’t mind being measured and don’t mind being monitored,” [workplace analytics consultant Carl] Hoffmann said. For some, especially those looking to claim responsibility for success, or for measures by which to prove their excellence, that’s probably true. “They want to know how they can improve,” he said.

There are also HR consultants that embrace using quantified data to track employees by location, sift through employee email to determine who's emailing whom too much or not enough (a feature, by the way, that's totally integrated into upcoming releases of Office 365) and monitor their social media activity to see if they're posting in a way that might suggest they're job-hunting.

So what? The move to quantify an employee's work is actually smoke signalling another fire: a shift away from easily specialized, rote jobs. Quantifying the specific tasks someone does is the first step toward identifying how to automate them. Once specific tasks can be done by software, then you no longer need humans to do the job.

Who cares? Humans, who presumably want a) to spend their time doing something that gives them a sense of purpose and b) to be able to do a) without starving, as we still live in a society where money is required in exchange for basic necessities.

There have been a few interesting little "Will your job be done by the robots?" things hitting the media lately, a

nd I recommend the NPR piece on how robots are now filling prescriptions at UCSF for a taste of what's to come in fields formerly handled by people. (See also vol 1, issue 61.) Now that researchers are focusing on teaching robots how to learn complex tasks that sometimes present either-or situations, all via pattern analysis and recognition.

And that's poised to disrupt industries where the human edge used to be our ability to detect complex patterns and react accordingly -- such as truck driving. This piece on Medium has a look at the vast web of local economies from sea to shining sea that are currently dependent on the long-haul trucking industry, and what the economic fallout could be if self-driving trucks replace Pigpen and Rubber Duck.

(Do you fear the robots coming for your job? See whether your fear is well-grounded with this handy website. I can't help but note that editors seem perhaps a little more secure than seems prudent. The grammarbots will rise eventually.)

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Your pop culture note of the day: That image at the left is the cover of Life magazine's November 1970 issue. I remember it vividly because my mom used that issue as a boot tree for her super-chic 1970s stacked heel, cognac colored boots,. When I was ten, I read the issue (because I would read anything if it was within arms' reach) and the Ford Models agency seemed more exotic than the Soviet space agency.

So I really enjoyed "How Ford Models Changed the Face of Beauty" in this month's Vanity Fair, and it reminded me that some of my favorite poolside reads revolve around the modeling industry in some way.

Just in time for summer entertainment season, my recommendations for Model 101:

Eileen Ford's NYT obituary, which is a history lesson in the modern modeling industry

"Thing of Beauty: How Gia Carangi carried the seeds of her own destruction (part 1, part 2)" -- about model Gia Carangi, who was basically a 0.9b version of a supermodel and had a life that lent itself to a book (Thing of Beauty) and an Angelina Jolie-helmed movie adaptation (Gia).

Model: the Ugly Business of Beautiful Women by Michael Gross, which is about as dishy and informative as any book that stops right around the ascent of the supermodel can be. Great poolside read.

A Dedicated Follower of Fashion by Holly Brubach, which is sort of a spiritual successor to the prior book, focused as it is on the fin-de-sicle late '90s.

And Champagne Supernovas by Maureen Callahan focuses on Kate Moss, Alexander McQueen and Marc Jacobs in the late 1990s -- it's another excellent "You are here at the changing of the guard" book. For a taste, read the Vanity Fair article on Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow, "Designed for Destruction."

And if you have time to watch something ...

About Face: Supermodels Then And Now is a great documentary, as are Unzipped (which is so, so very Fall 1994, as per this adorable article about how much has changed in the past 20 years) and The Making of the Sports Illustrated 25th Anniversary Swimsuit Issue.

For the record, for another great and possibly accidental history of modeling, you can do no better than the actual Sports Illustrated 25th anniversary swimsuit issue. I am dead serious. Go ask the Sports Illustrated reader in your life if she or he still has the issue laying around, then go read all the interviews with every single model who'd been on the cover (to that point) for a look at how drastically the business of modeling changed in the 1970s and 1980s.

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Are there typos? I apologize in advance. The only editing class I did not get an A in was copyediting.

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