On the other hand, it makes me wonder if we’re just heading for a future where everyone is just always working, at all times, even while doing other things.
“Wow look at our daughter taking her first steps! She’s doing so… wait hold on… No, Claude. I said to name the class “potatoes”, not “‘pot’ followed by eight ‘O’s,” you dumb robot!”
Rather than the example of missing first steps, what if we had, "Ok Claude, prepare a few slides for my presentation, I'm going to watch my childs mid-day recital..." maybe you get a success/failure ping and maybe even need to step out for part of the event, but in another world you couldn't have gone at all.
This is the premise of the comic Power Nap.
Dedicating any and all of your free time to work only becomes a norm if we let it.
[1]: https://www.goodwinrecruiting.com/eight-hour-workdays-and-40...
I don't think there's an obvious point to take collective action.
As an IC though, me sending a slack message is perhaps less impactful than a PL responding to a report :)
If I need something done and I ask one of my team members to do it, I trust them to get it done without supervision. They are good at their jobs and I leave them to it.
But I usually have to babysit an agent somewhat.
For context, I'm a PhD student. Work-life balance is already... elusive.