The phrase "sea change" comes from Shakespeare's late romances and denotes sudden, miraculous transformations that fundamentally alter circumstances. Robert Solow's "productivity paradox" observes that pervasive computer use appears everywhere yet does not show up clearly in measured productivity statistics. Bank of America Research proposes mechanisms suggesting workers are genuinely becoming more productive, with artificial intelligence as one component alongside digitization, process redesign, and labor-market adjustments. Shakespeare's late plays mix magical realism and social complexity, using the "sea change" metaphor to capture abrupt reversals or restorations caused by extraordinary events.
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.
Full disclosure: The author's brother is an eminent Shakespearean scholar, often quoted in The New York Times, although never previously in Fortune, and so I asked him to explain what this particular term means. "Toward the end of his career," Drew Lichtenberg of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC, said in a statement to Fortune, "Shakespeare started writing genre-defying plays with sudden and miraculous changes of fortune."
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