I Studied Human Resources. Then I Realised Humans Aren’t Resources.
Why human capability, freedom and flourishing exceed the indicators organisations typically measure. The primary conceptual inspiration for this project.
A PLAYABLE ORGANISATIONAL FABLE AN IMAGINED 2041
UNMEASURED.
The factory can measure everything.
Except the people inside it.
You have inherited a night shift, a powerful new automation system, and three decisions. Efficiency matters. So do livelihoods, voice, and what happens after the machines get faster.
A fictional scenario, not a forecast. No login. No tracking. Sound is optional.
01 / ENTER THE WORLDSCROLL TO THE FACTORY
[ 01 — INTERACTIVE FICTION ]
THE MACHINE COUNTS OUTPUT.
YOU CHOOSE WHAT COUNTS.
PLANT 07 / NIGHT OPERATIONS
Welcome to
the other shift.
SIMULATION ACTIVE02:14 AM — SHIFT 01
The floor is running. Nobody has been asked what matters yet.
ON THE FLOOR / VOICE 01
“The system's quick. I want to know who I can call when it's confidently wrong.”
— MIRA, MAINTENANCEOBSERVE ↔ DECIDE ↔ RECONSIDERTHE WORLD IS FICTIONAL. THE QUESTIONS ARE REAL.
[ 02 — THE QUESTION ]
BEYOND THE SCOREBOARD
IF A FACTORY BECOMES TWICE AS FAST...
Who gets the
hours back?
Automation changes what a workplace can produce. It does not, by itself, decide who gets paid, who becomes more secure, who has a voice, or whether the time saved becomes time returned.
The choices in this game are purposely uncomfortable. A manager can have sensible economic reasons to automate. A worker can have equally sensible reasons to worry about pay, control, and the loss of a route into skilled work. Sometimes two desirable outcomes compete, and no button resolves the conflict.
Sahil Tayal's writing asks us to distinguish human development from merely making people more useful to organisations. His work on AI and employment similarly insists that technological capability is not an employment forecast. This interactive fable turns those questions into decisions you can make and revisit.
About the simulation: Every person, workplace, incident and consequence in UNMEASURED is invented. The scenes illustrate possible tensions, not universal causal relationships. There is no AI predicting employment outcomes. The simulation runs entirely inside your browser.
[ 03 — FOLLOW THE IDEAS ]The original work
The original work
is the point.
This strange little factory is an invitation into a much larger conversation. Follow the arguments that actually inspired it.
“But Sahil, Will AI Take Our Jobs?”
A careful look at task automation, worker displacement, learning and social protection. The imagined shift draws on its emphasis on institutional choices.
Future of Human Work
A public editorial exploration of job design, autonomy, worker voice and trade-offs. The source for the contrasting viewpoints in the factory.
Stop Asking Which Skills Will Matter in 2036.
Why education cannot depend on accurately forecasting future careers; useful context for the fictional trainee who needs a way to learn.
CREATED AS AN INDEPENDENT DIGITAL EXPERIMENT BY SAHIL TAYAL
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