Historian Eve Fisher calculated that before the Industrial Revolution, making one shirt took 579 hours of work.
500 hours to spin the thread.
72 to weave the fabric.
7 to sew the shirt.
Multiply 579 by an hourly wage from today and a basic shirt would cost thousands of dollars. For most people, this is hard to imagine. I think it's a perfect example of just how alien the pre-industrial world was and how much we take modern production for granted.
The 579-hour shirt is also a great starting point for understanding how work itself has transformed over time, and how it’s likely to change in the immediate future because of AI.
1st Industrial Revolution (1760s-1840s)
From Hand Production to Machine Production
500 hours of spinning, 72 of weaving, and 7 of sewing; all to make one shirt. It’s no surprise that the Industrial Revolution started with textiles.
Machines like the spinning jenny and flying shuttle did the work of making clothes many times faster. One worker with a spinning jenny could make thread 8 times faster than with a spinning wheel. Later designs had more spindles and were 80 to 120 times faster.
The textile industry was the first of many industries to be transformed by machines. The seed drill and threshing machine improved crop yields. Steel rollers could shape steel 15 times faster than people with hammers. We weren't just doing the same work faster, we were working in entirely new ways. Machine production changed how we work.
The shift to a new production method required an entirely new workforce.
Workers had to learn how to operate the machines. Businesses had to redesign their production processes. Society had to develop entirely new perspectives on the nature and value of work. It was a seismic shock for humanity to go from doing work with hand tools, to operating machines that do most of the work.
2nd Industrial Revolution (1870s-1910s)
From Machine Production to Mass Production
In only a few decades, people using machines to do work transformed every industry from agriculture to steelmaking. Machines allowed us to harness electricity, make chemicals, and build: steamships, telegraphs, railroads, automobiles, airplanes, and other inventions that defined the modern world.
To illustrate how big of a change this was, let’s focus on cars.
In the early days of the automotive industry, cars were built one at a time. Machines could make the parts, but a team of 2-3 workers assembled each of those parts from the ground up. It took Ford Motor Company about 12 hours to build a single car.
To build them faster would require an entirely new workforce.
A team at Ford analyzed all the components and steps that went into making a car. Complex tasks were broken down into simple steps so workers could be quickly hired and trained. The steps were arranged in stations along an assembly line. Each car was moved down the line, stopping briefly at each station so workers could add parts.
This new method of production allowed Ford to build cars 8 times faster; in 90 minutes instead of 12 hours. The combination of machine production and the assembly line became known as Fordism, and marked the shift to mass production.
Imagine the panic you'd feel as a competitor of Ford when they started making cars 8 times faster. How would you respond?
AI is Mass Production for Digital Information
Just as machines and mass production revolutionized how we build physical things, AI transforms how we use digital information; which is at the core of most modern work. AI can do work with data unimaginably faster than people can. It lets us build digital things that were simply impossible just a few years ago using traditional software.
It worries me when I hear business leaders say their AI strategy consists of giving their employees agentic co-pilots, DIY workflow builders, and ChatGPT. This is like being a competitor of Ford when they introduce the assembly line, and you respond by giving your workers power tools.
Sure, you might build a few extra cars each day, while Ford builds them 8 times faster. You’re going to get left in the dust.
AI is a new method of production. It's like mass production for digital information. So yet again, a new workforce is required.
Leading firms are already designing human-synthetic hybrid workforces and deploying autonomous synthetic workers. Pharma giant Moderna recently merged their HR and IT departments. Synthetic workers built by Mission Control AI recently completed months of complex inventory reconciliation work in 8 hours; literally 1000 times faster than a team of people could.
These aren’t predictions about the future, this is what’s happening right now.
I'm willing to bet your organization has expensive, time-intensive, and high-volume tasks that absolutely have to get done, or be ignored at your peril. Moving these tasks from “how will we do it?” to “done” happens when we start seeing AI not just as a tool, but as an entirely new method of production.
If this resonates with you or sparks discussion: I recommend reaching out.