For Business

Beyond Tasks: A Vision for the Post-Labor Economy

For Business

Beyond Tasks: A Vision for the Post-Labor Economy

For Business

Beyond Tasks: A Vision for the Post-Labor Economy

Date

Nov 26, 2024

Author

Eduard Cristea

Topics

AI

AI

AI

Business

Business

Business

Enterprise

Enterprise

Enterprise

7

minute read

Beyond Tasks: A Vision for the Post-Labor Economy

Beyond Tasks: A Vision for the Post-Labor Economy

It's 3 AM at Mount Sinai Hospital. In the quiet hours, while doctors sleep and nurses change shifts, thousands of faxes quietly pile up. Each contains critical patient information – referrals, lab results, insurance authorizations. By morning, Sarah, the intake coordinator, will face hundreds of urgent documents requiring immediate attention. She'll spend her day manually entering data, calling insurance companies, scheduling appointments, and coordinating care. Tomorrow, she'll do it all again.

Across town, at Paramount Properties, Spencer's team is bracing for another Friday afternoon. They know that inevitably, just before closing time, multiple maintenance emergencies will hit simultaneously. Boilers will break. Pipes will leak. Tenants will need immediate assistance. The team will stay late, juggling calls, coordinating contractors, and managing crises.

This isn't just a story about healthcare or real estate. This is the reality of modern business operations – humans constrained by time, overwhelmed by information, trapped in necessary labor.

But what if it didn't have to be this way?



The Messy Business Reality

        +-------------------+
        | Incoming Data     |
        | (Faxes, Emails,   |
        |  Calls, Messages) |
        +---------+---------+
                  |
                  v
        +-------------------+
        | Human Processing  |
        | Manual Review and |
        | Categorization    |
        +---------+---------+
                  |
                  v
        +-------------------+
        | Data Entry &      |
        | Decision-Making   |
        | in Various Tools  |
        +---------+---------+
                  |
                  v
        +-------------------+
        | Delayed Actions   |
        | Potential Errors  |
        | & Bottlenecks

Walk into any business today, and you'll find the same scene: an army of skilled professionals spending their days sifting through what we call "the messy business problem":

  • Healthcare administrators manually processing referral faxes

  • Property managers juggling urgent maintenance emails

  • Legal assistants sorting through case documents

  • Insurance processors reviewing claim forms

  • Freight coordinators managing shipping notifications

This isn't just inefficiency – it's the bottleneck that constrains every business operation. Each document, each email, each message requires human judgment, human processing, human routing. And humans, no matter how skilled, are bound by time.

Consider the typical workflow:

  1. Information arrives (faxes, emails, calls, messages)

  2. Humans manually review and categorize

  3. Data gets entered into various systems

  4. Decisions are made based on business rules

  5. Actions are initiated in downstream systems

  6. The process repeats, endlessly

Each step requires human attention. Each step creates delay. Each step introduces potential error.


Beyond Traditional Solutions

The traditional approach to this problem has been to create more tools:

  • Document management systems

  • Automated form processing

  • RPA scripts

  • Point AI solutions

But these tools miss the fundamental point: they still require humans to operate them. They turn humans into tool operators rather than freeing them from the task entirely.


The SOME-1 Revolution: From Tools to Workers


At SOME-1, we're taking a radically different approach. Instead of creating more tools for humans to operate, we're creating autonomous workers that own entire operational roles.

Think about the difference:



Real World Impact: A Worker, Not a Tool

Let's look at what this means in practice. Take Mount Sinai's intake process:

Traditional Process:

  • Sarah checks faxes at 9 AM

  • Manually enters patient data into EMR

  • Passes information to Tom for insurance verification

  • Tom routes to Jane for scheduling

  • Jane coordinates with doctors' calendars

  • Process takes days, stops at 5 PM

SOME-1 Worker:

  • Processes referrals instantly, 24/7

  • Extracts and verifies all patient data

  • Checks insurance in real-time

  • Coordinates with scheduling systems

  • Communicates with patients and staff

  • Complete intake in minutes, any time

This isn't automation. It's an autonomous worker that understands the entire intake role, makes decisions, and takes ownership of outcomes.


The Power of Understanding

What makes this possible isn't just processing speed. It's understanding. Our workers don't just move data – they comprehend it. When a fax arrives at 3 AM containing urgent patient information, our worker:

  1. Understands Context

    • Recognizes urgency levels

    • Identifies key medical information

    • Comprehends insurance requirements

    • Knows facility protocols

  2. Makes Decisions

    • Prioritizes based on medical need

    • Routes to appropriate departments

    • Initiates urgent protocols when needed

    • Coordinates complex scheduling

  3. Takes Ownership

    • Manages entire workflows

    • Communicates with all parties

    • Ensures completion

    • Learns from outcomes

Beyond Single Departments

The real power emerges when these workers handle cross-functional roles. A single SOME-1 worker can:


┌─── Intake Processing ───┐
Document analysis    
Data extraction     
System updates      



┌─── Coordination ──┐ 
Insurance      
Scheduling     
Communication  
└─────────────────┘ 



┌─── Management ───┐  
Follow-ups    
Reporting     
Optimization  
└─────────────────┘  
└───────────────────────┘


The Market Reality: Beyond Point Solutions

While others focus on automating individual tasks - document processing here, scheduling there - we're witnessing a larger opportunity. The "messy business" isn't just a problem to solve; it's the gateway to transforming how business operates.

Consider the numbers:

  • $250B spent annually on business process outsourcing

  • 8M+ operations and information clerk roles in the US alone

  • 60% of knowledge worker time spent on routine coordination

  • $42T global labor market waiting to be transformed

But these numbers tell only part of the story. The real opportunity lies in what happens when you own the top of the operational funnel.


The Compound Effect

When a SOME-1 worker handles incoming information, something remarkable happens:


By understanding and owning the initial interaction, our workers earn the right to:

  • Initialize downstream workflows

  • Coordinate across systems

  • Make informed decisions

  • Drive business outcomes

Beyond Efficiency: The Strategic Advantage

This transformation isn't just about cost savings or efficiency. It's about fundamental competitive advantage:

  1. Scale Without Constraint

    • Expand operations instantly

    • Enter new markets seamlessly

    • Handle volume spikes effortlessly

  2. Perfect Knowledge Retention

    • Never lose institutional knowledge

    • Learn from every interaction

    • Continuously improve processes

  3. True 24/7 Operation

    • Serve global markets

    • Handle after-hours emergencies

    • Eliminate time zone constraints


The Future of Work: Beyond the Messy Business

What we're witnessing isn't just another wave of automation. It's the beginning of a fundamental shift in how business operates. The messy business - that seemingly mundane problem of information overload - is our wedge into something much bigger.

The Evolution

Past         Present      SOME-1 Future
─────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────
Human Labor  Tools       Autonomous Workers
Sequential   Parallel    Continuous
Local        Remote      Ubiquitous
Limited      Scaled      Infinite


Think about what happens when businesses are no longer constrained by:

  • Human attention spans

  • Working hours

  • Information processing capacity

  • Geographic locations

  • Language barriers

  • System limitations


The Three Waves of AI in Business

  1. First Wave: AI Tools

    • Automate specific tasks

    • Augment human capabilities

    • Still require human operation

  2. Second Wave: AI Assistants

    • Handle multiple tasks

    • Learn from interaction

    • Need human oversight

  3. Third Wave: Autonomous Workers

    • Own entire roles

    • Make complex decisions

    • Operate independently

We're leading the third wave. While others build better tools or smarter assistants, we're creating true workers that transform how business operates.


The Near Future

Within the next 12-24 months, we'll see:

  1. Complete Role Transformation

    • Entire operational departments run by autonomous workers

    • Perfect coordination across functions

    • Real-time scaling based on demand

  2. New Business Models

    • Operations that never sleep

    • Global service without time zones

    • Infinite scalability without human constraints

  3. Economic Impact

    • 90% reduction in operational costs

    • 1000x increase in processing capacity

    • Unlimited business growth potential

The Long View

But this is just the beginning. As our workers evolve, we'll see:


Each phase compounds the benefits of the previous one, creating entirely new possibilities for how businesses operate and how humans work.


The Call to Action

The messy business problem isn't just a challenge - it's an opportunity. An opportunity to:

  • Transform how business operates

  • Redefine what's possible

  • Create true operational freedom

  • Enable unlimited growth

For businesses ready to evolve, the choice is clear: Continue struggling with tools and tasks, or deploy autonomous workers that transform your operations.