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The brief ouster of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman a couple of weekends ago once again spotlighted concerns about the rapid development of A.I. The short-lived coup was apparently spearheaded by researchers at the company who "believe a headlong rush into artificial intelligence could destroy mankind," reported The Wall Street Journal.
This isn't the first time concerned insiders have fretted about the potential downsides of A.I., which run the gamut from turbocharged spam to human extinction. But what about the possible upsides of A.I.? If the potential problems of a technology include mass economic displacement and the end of our species, then certainly the upsides have to be pretty great in order to justify continued progress.
And indeed, a chorus of experts has been singing A.I.'s potentially miraculous benefits. These go way beyond helping students write term papers and entrepreneurs come up with ad copy quicker. Phenomenal medical and scientific breakthroughs and smart personal assistants that can tackle much of life's boring admin may be on the horizon, they say.
Recent research and Bill Gates even predict that, thanks to A.I., vast swaths of us may soon be able to work a four- or even three-day workweek.
When lots of people hear that A.I. may soon be smart enough to do much of our work for us, they understandably start worrying about losing their jobs and livelihoods. But a new study from think tank Autonomy paints an alternative picture. Yes, there may soon be less work for humans. But handled correctly, that could just mean a lot more leisure for all of us.
The think tank's report "found that projected productivity gains from the introduction of A.I. could reduce the working week from 40 to 32 hours for 28 percent of the workforce -- 8.8 million people in Britain and 35 million in the U.S. -- while maintaining pay and performance," reports the U.K. Guardian. In the U.S., 128 million workers could have their workweeks reduced by at least 10 percent.
"According to Autonomy, such a policy could also help to avoid mass unemployment and reduce widespread mental and physical illnesses," the article continues.
If that sounds farfetched to you, that's not unreasonable. Experts have been predicting increases in productivity would lead to shortened workweeks at least since the great economist John Maynard Keynes opined that his grandkids would work a 15-hour workweek in 1930. They've always been wrong. Up to now, when productivity has gone up, people have chosen to use those gains to earn more money and buy more stuff rather than give themselves more time off.
But it's not just one idealistic think tank floating the idea that this time around we really may get a shorter workweek out of all our technological gains. The concept of a four-day workweek was percolating plenty in the public conversation well before the recent release of amazing generative A.I. tools got us all imaging our future robot butlers. Several four-day workweek trials, on the company and national level, all had positive results and attracted high-profile backers.
Bill Gates, too, is willing to throw his considerable clout behind the idea. Appearing recently on comedian Trevor Noah's What Now? podcast, Gates painted a picture not far off from the one imagined by Autonomy. The only difference? He thinks we might even get down to working just three days a week.
"If you zoom out, you know, the purpose of life is not just to do jobs," Gates says (which is slightly ironic given his well-documented workaholism in his early days). "If you eventually get a society where you only have to work three days a week or something, that's probably OK, if the machines can make all the food and the stuff and we don't have to work as hard."
Gates is careful to offer a few words of caution, though. If the development of A.I. proceeds too quickly, he warns, society might not have time to adjust and real suffering would occur. A positive transition also demands understanding and forethought from our leaders. But "if it proceeds at a reasonable pace and the government helps those people who have to learn new things, then it's all good," Gates concludes.
Both those conditions, particularly the need for competent politicians doing the right thing, seem like very big ifs at the moment. But assuming that scientists keep advancing and society keeps innovating in response to their progress, A.I. might not destroy jobs. Instead, it could destroy the traditional 40-hour workweek.
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Bill Gates Says We Could Soon All Work 4-Day Weeks Thanks to A.I. New Research Agrees
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01.12.2023
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The brief ouster of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman a couple of weekends ago once again spotlighted concerns about the rapid development of A.I. The short-lived coup was apparently spearheaded by researchers at the company who "believe a headlong rush into artificial intelligence could destroy mankind," reported The Wall Street Journal.
This isn't the first time concerned insiders have fretted about the potential downsides of A.I., which run the gamut from turbocharged spam to human extinction. But what about the possible upsides of A.I.? If the potential problems of a technology include mass economic displacement and the end of our species, then certainly the upsides have to be pretty great in order to justify continued progress.
And indeed, a chorus of experts has been singing A.I.'s potentially miraculous benefits. These go way beyond helping........
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