Spend about five minutes poking around the internet, and you're likely to find some sort of clip or post about a clueless dad asking his wife the name of their child's doctor, or soccer schedule, or when their anniversary is again. Time and time again, it's been proven that women have to carry a higher cognitive load when it comes to care work, and even when people try to equalize the work, outside parties often can't quite grasp it. A friend went on a two week overseas work trip and let her children's schools know that they should reach out to her spouse in case of emergencies -- they ignored her and continued to call her until she told them she was literally in China and couldn't just run her son's lunch over.
In my last newsletter I talked about practical use cases for AI, and here's a great one -- making women's live easier. Not having to remember your mother-in-law's birthday and what type of flowers she likes. Not having to remember that this kid is due for that shot, or that you need to call your dad's doctor about his new meds. All the unseen, unheralded, draining work -- AI could easily do this.
Because most of the leaders in the AI space are men, we're not going to see this unless we push for it. But there is a massive market of women who'd love to outsource all this thankless work to a machine and get on with what they actually want to do. I talk a lot about how automation can help people stay in their zones of genius, and it can do that, or just allow you to have more time to read a book and spend less time thinking about who is bringing what to a holiday dinner.
Women should stop fearing this technology and start embracing it and building products they want to see. Imagine a world where everything just ran in the background and women were free to pursue their dreams without the cognitive load of organizing play groups. That would truly be a revolutionary change.