- What is a “sea change” and what does it have to do with worker productivity, the computer age, and the “productivity paradox?” The first phrase comes to us from Shakespeare, and it means a sort of mystical transformation, after which something is fundamentally different from before. The second phase comes from Nobel laureate Robert Solow, about how you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics. Bank of America Research thinks it sees a way that workers really are getting more productive—and AI is only one part of the puzzle.
The late plays by William Shakespeare are alternately called his “romances” or his “problem plays,” because of their ambiguity in tone, as they alternate from passages of magical realism to stark scenes that grapple with complex social issues. At times, they point the way toward the prestige TV of the early 21st century where, for instance, The Sopranos could range from broad comedy to intense violence to avant-garde dream sequences, all in one episode. It’s from the romances that we get phrases that stick with us today, like the description from The Tempest of a “sea change into something rich and strange.”
