The Future of Work Is About Doing Better—Not Less

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Along with the future of artificial intelligence, I write about mid-century American bank robbers. 

I write scripts for a history podcast, and one would think that it’s the perfect task to outsource to LLMs. I’ve written many of these before, know exactly what’s expected, and am fairly confident I can articulate them in a prompt. I also have existing research so I can give the LLM reliable knowledge to draw from.  

But when my partner asked me if I’m going to use AI to write them, my instinctive answer was: “No, I want to do a good job.” 

After some introspection, I realized that my reaction had nothing to do with AI’s capabilities. I was holding on to a quiet assumption: If AI makes writing easier, something important must be getting lost along the way. Reduced effort must mean reduced quality. Because of this irrational thought, I don’t use AI as much as I can—even though it would free me to focus on the aspects of writing I like more. 

This relationship between effort and perceived value isn’t novel. It’s a human tendency that surfaces in surprising contexts: The American cake mix industry, of all things, grappled with a similar situation decades ago. When cake mix sales fell because their powdered product alienated consumers from the baking process, the industry found an elegant solution: Don’t reduce effort—redirect it. 

As I dug into the psychology behind our relationship with effort, I saw a parallel in our attitudes to using AI for work. I believe the horizon of effort—the energy and attention we invest in our work—isn’t reducing, it’s shifting. This essay explores how I think we can thoughtfully redefine where we entrust our effort.  

A quick primer on the cake mix industry 

General Mills, the owner of the popular Betty Crocker brand, was one of the first companies to promise Americans a reliable, no-fuss way to bake a cake. Add water to the instant cake mix, give it a stir, pop it in the oven…and 30 minutes later you’d have a cake. A freshly baked one, at that. You’d have all the rewards of a homemade cake—admiring comments from guests, and a warm, sweet aroma in your kitchen—but none of the mess.

After literally selling like hot cakes for half a decade, in the mid-1950s, America’s cake mix industry saw a slump in demand. General Mills was at a loss. The company hired consumer psychologist Ernest Dichter to find out why the mix had stopped selling. Dichter interviewed the target customer—American housewives—to conclude that they felt bad about using instant cake mix. He wrote, “This is typical of what the average housewife said: ‘Yes, I’m using a cake mix; it saves me a lot of trouble but I really shouldn’t.’” 

Dichter’s advice was to give these women a bigger role in the cake-making process. For them to enjoy the fruits of a homemade cake, they needed to do more than just stir and add water. 

General Mills took his words to heart—its cake mixes now demanded water, a good stir, and a fresh egg. The story goes that cracking an egg into the powdered mix changed everything. The boxes of deconstructed baked goodness started flying off the shelves, and all was well in cake mix land again. 

Many on the internet have challenged the specifics of this story. They argue that adding a fresh egg wasn’t just a marketing tactic, it actually made the cakes taste better (dried egg powder— which is what General Mills used previously—apparently tastes as bad as it sounds). The cake mix aficionados mostly agree that sales picked up because of another marketing tactic: redefining what making a homemade cake meant. General Mills downplayed the actual baking of the cake, putting more emphasis on how the cake looked. Cake decoration became the part of the process where bakers—armed with frosting sugar and sprinkles—could express themselves. Take this 1974 cake recipe. It has 18 steps—by step five, the cake mix is baked and ready, and the other 13 steps are about making it look pretty, using skewers, straws, and even a paint brush. 

Whether fresh eggs or frosting sugar saved the cake mix industry is up for debate, but what this story tells us about human nature is the same: Our relationship with effort is more complicated than we think. We assume that given a choice to do the same thing in two ways, we would choose the one which requires less effort. But that isn’t always true. Sometimes, we want to break the egg and decorate the cake ourselves, a phenomenon pop psychology calls the “Betty Crocker Effect.”