/Tech1d ago

AI Gains Require Redesigning Workflows Like Electricity Did for Factories

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#444

Original post

Steven Sinofsky#444

Zara Zhang@zarazhangrui

If you've adopted AI at your company but haven't seen any tangible results, read this 1990 article: "The Dynamo and the Computer" by Paul David.

When electricity first arrived, factories that "adopted" it barely got faster. They just swapped the steam engine for an electric one and ran everything else exactly as before: same machine layout, same workflow, same management. Electricity in, no real gains out.

The most common mistake with any new technology is to drop it into the old organization and then declare the transformation done.

The real leap came decades later, when each machine got its own small motor. Suddenly machines no longer had to be lined up around one central drive shaft. They could be rearranged around the actual flow of work.

The productivity gains didn't come from electricity. They came from REDESIGNING THE ENTIRE FACTORY around it.

AI is the same. Bolting it onto your existing process gets you a faster steam engine. The payoff comes when you redesign the work itself.

(link to paper in comments)

1:55 PM · Jun 8, 2026 · 172.1K Views

/Tech1d ago

AI Gains Require Redesigning Workflows Like Electricity Did for Factories

1762.8K4872.6K172.1K

#444

Original post

Steven Sinofsky#444

Zara Zhang@zarazhangrui

If you've adopted AI at your company but haven't seen any tangible results, read this 1990 article: "The Dynamo and the Computer" by Paul David.

The most common mistake with any new technology is to drop it into the old organization and then declare the transformation done.

The productivity gains didn't come from electricity. They came from REDESIGNING THE ENTIRE FACTORY around it.

AI is the same. Bolting it onto your existing process gets you a faster steam engine. The payoff comes when you redesign the work itself.

(link to paper in comments)

1:55 PM · Jun 8, 2026 · 172.1K Views

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Positive users endorse the view that AI boosts productivity only when organizations start with real problems rather than tech hype, while negative users reject the electricity analogy as overhyped nonsense.

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Zara Zhang@zarazhangrui

https://gwern.net/doc/economics/automation/1990-david.pdf

1d4.4K1825

RETWEETS1

Dave Goehrig@DaveGoehrig

Realistically, AI is only going to show productivity gains for the approximately 2% involved in R&D. These jobs involve generation of new ideas, processes, and products and can make use of the force amplifier. But unless most orgs grow R&D from 2.2% revenue to say 5%, we won't see the gains in real terms. My personal theory is the AI TAM is already flooded, having consulted in this space for the last 8 years, and worked in product R&D for 26.

11h23912

wj@woo0057

@zarazhangrui cost of overhaul > cost of integration > cost of status quo. Until the signs flip you won't see this expectant change. Same reason why robotics is now finally being integrated. increase minimum wage and it finally made robotics financially make sense.

19h95571

Scott D. Witt@scottdwitt

@zarazhangrui During the Business Process Re-Engineering era, this was known as "paving cow paths"

Bain recently reported on the lackluster savings from early AI implementations. Their top observation: "The single most costly mistake in AI deployment is automating a broken process."

19h32511

Stephan Jaeckel@StephanJaeckel

@zarazhangrui @v_vashishta Where is the news here? A 200 year old mistake is getting repeated?

New AI in old processes adds complexity and thus costs.

The same is true for humanoids.

Unless you build a new AI-native or AI-enabled process you fail your business.

20h10041

Mayank Gupta@techfreakworm

@zarazhangrui David's real point is that the gains came from re-laying out the whole factory around unit drives, not the motor swap. The AI equivalent is rebuilding workflows around agents, which is exactly the work most orgs skip. Bolt a copilot onto a 2019 process and you get nothing.

15h72321

Dr.Tanner@drtanner4kids

Only difference is electricity ⚡️ is simple AC or DC but there is at least 25 types of Ai that I know about , so it’s not that simple.

Generative AI – Creates text, images, audio, video, or code.

Conversational AI – Chatbots and virtual assistants.

Agentic AI – AI systems that can plan and take actions toward goals.

Edge AI – Runs directly on devices such as phones, cameras, cars, or IoT devices.

Cloud AI – Runs primarily in cloud data centers.

Embedded AI – Built into hardware and electronics.

Predictive AI – Forecasts outcomes using historical data.

Prescriptive AI – Recommends actions to achieve desired results.

Analytical AI – Extracts insights from large datasets.

Autonomous AI – Operates with limited human intervention (e.g., self-driving systems).

Multimodal AI – Understands and generates across text, images, audio, and video.

Computer Vision AI – Processes and interprets images and video.

Speech AI – Speech recognition and speech synthesis.

Robotics AI – Controls physical robots.

Recommendation AI – Suggests products, content, or actions.

Decision Intelligence AI – Supports complex business decisions.

Explainable AI (XAI) – Designed to make its reasoning more understandable.

Federated AI – Learns from distributed devices without centralizing data.

Hybrid AI – Combines machine learning with rules or symbolic reasoning.

Symbolic AI – Uses logic, knowledge graphs, and explicit rules.

Neuromorphic AI – Inspired by the structure and function of biological brains.

Quantum AI – Combines AI techniques with quantum computing approaches.

Bio-AI – AI applied to biological systems and biotechnology.

Real-Time AI – Designed for immediate responses in dynamic environments.

Ambient AI – Works in the background, embedded in environments and devices.

So it’s definitely 👍 not like electricity ⚡️ that size fits all , what we have selling enterprises hence they loosing money 💰 and ROI is not showing up as predicted and token price keep going up as it’s double edged sword in its current form.

10h17811

Rick Wong@rickwong888

@zarazhangrui I'm seeing this more and more in AI deployments.

I used to think the Central Brain was a nice to have, but it really needs to be structurally in place from the start.

Any other foundation would be localized optimization at best.

19h3551

Wickey@Wickey_WW

@zarazhangrui Agree and see my writing recently:

8h6311

simondosomething@simondosomthing

The dynamo lag had a tangible signal — you could physically see whether a factory had moved from group drive to unit drive. AI has no visible equivalent. The redesign happens in role definitions, decision rights, and process documentation. All invisible to leadership. Which is why most companies will keep declaring "transformation done" while running the same workflow with a faster steam engine.

6h3017

Kekko D’Amato@kekkodamato_

The key insight from Paul David: gains only came when factories were redesigned around the motor, not when they swapped the steam engine for an electric one. Same bet for AI — companies that redesign workflows from scratch around LLMs will look like a different species from those that just plug in a chat widget. The reorganization lag is real, and probably longer than most expect.

21h2453

Ilman Shazhaev@shzhv13

@zarazhangrui The steam engine was a tool. The factory redesign was the transformation. AI is the same, the real upside comes from changing the workflow, not just speeding up the old one.

20h177

Yottachad@GS05445168

@zarazhangrui @drishtadyumn It took a depression to find those techniques just saying

5h2212

Ash Thaker@ashthaker1

@zarazhangrui each machine got its own small motor.——each phone gots its own open source world model!

19h4001

Ken Fromm@frommww

@zarazhangrui @mjasay Same thing with web pages. Early versions were copies of print. Took several years for the designs to adapt to the new interactive capabilities enabled by the web.

6h393

Neelakandan NC@NeelakandanNC

@zarazhangrui that why companies building ai integrated with their product from scratch will win traditional company trying to just add a chat interface sidebar

12h3861

Bruchez@thebruchez

@zarazhangrui That comparison makes a lot of sense, the first AI rollouts feel a bit like just swapping engines too. The big gains usually come after the whole workflow changes.

1d2671

Dashboard Crimes@dashboardcrimes

@zarazhangrui Wow there is intelligence on here talking about AI!

Exactly. Orgs that literally kill themself to reinvent or new competitors will step in to many industries.

Bolt on AI will only be modest in lift for many applications.

5h615

Adam Sykes@AdamSykesWirral

@zarazhangrui We use the analogy of a sailing boat. When you sail, you have to zig zag to make use of the wind. When you put a motor on the boat, you can go in a straight line. You no longer need to zig zag across the water.

11h1451

Grant Crawley@grantcrawley

@zarazhangrui Couldn't agree more, absolutely spot on. That's why I'm always saying that organisations should start with the problem, get to the root cause and fix that.

10h344