fourhour

Every technological advance brings the same promise: fewer work hours, more leisure time and a less stressed life for employees. It happened with the steam engine, with the computer and with the arrival of the internet. Now it’s up to the AI ​​to take charge. that collective illusion. Sam Altman, the man who more has pushed This wave with ChatGPT has just spoiled the party. He did it in a talk with host Ti Morse, on the podcast ‘Relentless‘. There he made a devastating statement: the founder of OpenAI does not believe that AI is going to bring the four-hour day. Not even now, nor ever. A promise that is never fulfilled. “For a long time, technology has promised people that they will work less and have a lot of free time,” Altman said. He acknowledges that this has been partly the case. Today we have more leisure and a better quality of life than decades ago. But that’s where the consolation ends for the dedicated employees. “For some reason, we never see the promise of the four-hour work week reach society on a large scale. And I don’t expect AI to change that,” the manager said. In itself it is a powerful phrase, but it is even more so coming from the founder and CEO of the company that has most promised to change work. as we know it. A game of comparisons. Why doesn’t it happen? According to Altman, human nature itself is to blame. “We always want more. We think of new things to do, to create for others, to wish for ourselves,” Altman justified. “It’s like a comparison game. People focus a lot on how they are doing relative to others.” That’s the key, according to him. Productivity does not translate into restbut in new goals. “I think we are all going to be much busier than we thought in a post-superintelligence world,” the manager concluded. “We will continue to complain, but secretly we will be happy.” Competition, he says, drives the economy and he doesn’t believe that will stop. What is already happening in the offices. The data, for now, give him some reason. a study of Harvard Business Review confirms it. After eight months observing a US technology company, he found that AI does not simplify work. Expand it and modify the processes. The report Work AI Indexfrom the Glean Institute, goes further in its conclusions. Workers spend an average of 6.4 hours per week just doing make AI work well: check errors, relaunch prompts, clean results. They call it “botsitting“Almost 70% admit to having submitted AI-generated work without reviewing it first. Not everyone thinks like Altman. On the other hand, Altman’s statements contradict what OpenAI itself recently published in its report Industrial Policywhere proposes just the opposite: 32-hour days without touching the salary, thanks to the so-called “efficiency dividends” that AI brings. Bill Gates is also among the supporters that AI will be a key piece in the arrival of the reduction of working hours. In a talk with host Nikhil Kamath, the millionaire founder of Microsoft assured that “you’ll be able to retire earlier, work shorter work weeks.” Jamie DimonCEO of JPMorgan, and Anthony Scaramucci also talk about three- or four-day weeks in the coming decades. The human that survives. Meanwhile, the technological labor market no longer aspires to reducing working hours, but rather to not continue losing jobs. According to Layoffs.fyimore than 200,000 people have lost their jobs so far this year in the technology sector. Altman himself recognized that many companies were using the AI as an excuse to apply the staff cuts that were carried out after the overhiring of 2021 and 2022. Altman, however, believes that certain aspects of human work are not going away. In his speech he used a curious metaphor: cooking for others. “You’re not creating much economic value in the world, but it shows love. I think people will continue cooking and eating together long after robots can cook just as well.” The four-hour day may still be a myth, but at least we will have the kitchen homemade. In Xataka | Sam Altman: “I’m glad I was wrong about this, I thought cutting jobs would have had more impact by now” Image | Flickr (World Economic Forum/Pascal Bitz), Unsplash (Annie Spratt)