Ask them what they do and tell them the ways you can automate their job away.
Tell them that perhaps their job could be done by a machine and you will speak to their supervisor about creating such a project.
In all seriousness ignore it and focus on actually doing your job. If you really want to convince them, rephrase the above as helping them get the annoying parts of their job automated. Then when they tell you, tell them you'll need to do some research on the best way to approach the problem and look what's already been done to automate those sorts of tasks, rather than blindly working and reinventing something that already exists. At this point the light bulb should go on, however you'll have to usually spell it out for them that this is why you think about things rather than charging right in unthinkingly. So that you don't waste resources by reinventing something that could be found for free just be looking (aka. research aka. 'thinking').
Talk to them about how something like a browser requires millions of man hours of work and how if you can find a browser on the internet rather than creating your own you can provide better value to the company.
Tell them that perhaps their job could be done by a machine and you will speak to their supervisor about creating such a project.
In all seriousness ignore it and focus on actually doing your job. If you really want to convince them, rephrase the above as helping them get the annoying parts of their job automated. Then when they tell you, tell them you'll need to do some research on the best way to approach the problem and look what's already been done to automate those sorts of tasks, rather than blindly working and reinventing something that already exists. At this point the light bulb should go on, however you'll have to usually spell it out for them that this is why you think about things rather than charging right in unthinkingly. So that you don't waste resources by reinventing something that could be found for free just be looking (aka. research aka. 'thinking').
Talk to them about how something like a browser requires millions of man hours of work and how if you can find a browser on the internet rather than creating your own you can provide better value to the company.