Workers in Shoshanna Zuboff's influential In the Age of the Smart Machine often lamented the way in which their jobs had now become perpetual and difficult challenges, but they had not experienced a corresponding rise in pay. Their knowledge-ranging by job from how to check pressure levels in a paper pulp tank to the proper claims forms to file in insurance cases -- was now "externalized" so that it could be manipulated. Once both knowledge and manipulations could be codified in machine-readable form and specified in machine-controlled actions, the workers themselves are superfluous.

Companies were improving the flexibility and efficiency of their operations by automating repetitive tasks and removing middle management from the hierarchy, but they were shifting the responsibilities of middle management and of improving automation to the lowest-paid workers. Less successful workers allowed (or were forced to allow) their own work to be viewed as mindless pushing of buttons and filing of keys -- these workers were holding on to an outdated notion of creativity and responsibility.

Successful workers were those that learned how to manipulate symbols and understand -- and take advantage of -- the usefulness and value of this activity.

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