The robots are coming. They're just stuck on Revision C.

Every few weeks someone announces that artificial intelligence is about to replace everybody who works in an office. So we'd like to introduce you to GAIL.

GAIL (General Artificial Intelligence, Lite) is a superintelligence. It can write a sonnet, pass a law exam and summarise a 400 page report before the kettle boils. It was due to take over the world on Monday.

It hasn't. Here's why.

GAIL's first week in a drawing office

• Monday: asked for the latest general arrangement. Received three. All of them called "GA final".
• Tuesday: found the real one in an email thread titled "FW: RE: RE: final FINAL v3 (use this one)". It was Revision B. Revision C was on somebody's desktop.
• Wednesday: waited on client information.
• Thursday: also waited on client information.
• Friday, 4:55pm: received "just a quick change".

The countdown to superintelligence has been paused, pending Revision C.

The joke has a point

Clever software isn't what most offices are missing. Being able to find things is. All the intelligence in the world doesn't help if the drawing it's reading is out of date. Most of the expensive mistakes we see aren't bad engineering. They're good work done on the wrong revision.

That's the gap Redpen fills. Every job keeps its enquiry and drawings, the quote and every revision of it, and its RFIs and variations in one place. The latest version is the one in front of you, whether you're a person or a very confused robot.

GAIL will be back

GAIL is sticking around, and we'll check in on the countdown now and then. In the meantime, what's the worst file name you've ever seen? We're collecting them.

See how Redpen keeps a job in one place.