Doorman fallacy
noun phrase
The mistake of assuming that because a doorman opens the door, opening the door is the whole job. Automating the visible task can hide everything else the role was carrying.
Also known as task–job confusion
The doorman fallacy is the mistake of assuming that because a doorman opens the door, opening the door is the job.
A doorman also recognises residents, screens strangers, receives packages, notices when something is wrong and maintains the order of a building. Automate the door and you have removed the most visible task. You have not necessarily replaced the role.
The same mistake runs through arguments about AI and work. Jobs look like bundles of tasks on paper, so a machine completing the obvious task can appear to have swallowed the job. The missing work is often context, judgement and relationship, the things that were load-bearing precisely because nobody bothered to list them.