workweeks

Bill Gates has been talking for some time about a topic that has become almost an obsession for the millionaire: what will happen to work when AI takes care of a good part of it. The technology magnate did so sitting in front of the Indian businessman and host of the podcast “People by WTF” Nikhil Kamath. During the conversationGates presented his concerns and predictions about the future of work, from the perspective of someone who has been away from the front line of business for many years and is close to retirement age (if that is the case). millionaires retire one day to be). “In 20 years, AI will have changed things enough that this purely capitalist framework probably won’t explain much anymore.” The shortage that Gates considers dead. The founder of Microsoft assures that “we have always had a shortage: a shortage of doctors, of teachers, of people to work in factories. These shortages will cease to exist. It will be a quite profound change, which will free up a lot of time.” That is, thanks to the implementation of AI and robotics tools, the deficit of professionals in certain areas will be reduced. The data agrees with the founder of Microsoft, at least in relation to the shortage of qualified labor in strategic sectors like the toiletor the teacher, for whom UNESCO foresees a shortage of 44 million primary and secondary education teachers by 2030. “For those of us who have been in a world of scarcity for almost 70 years, it is difficult to even adapt,” acknowledges the millionaire. Hands made of metal. Beyond the knowledge work that AI can develop, the veteran millionaire also spoke about the role of robotics and how robots will contribute to reducing people’s working hours and working lives. “You have to have extraordinary hands to do those things. We will achieve it,” says Gates about the work of robots in factories, construction and in sectors as physically punished as hotel cleaning. He’s not the only one who thinks so. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang estimates that humanoid robots could move a market of 40 billion dollars. Elon Musk, assured that by 2040, there will be at least 10 billion humanoid robots priced between $20,000 and $25,000. Still lacks real skill for perform with ease and reliability in an industrial environment, but investments and engineering are already at work in that direction, just as Gates predicts. Retire early: the old promise that seems to be moving away. The most controversial phrase in the interview, however, refers to the fact that employees will no longer need to have such a long career to access retirement, something that clashes head-on with the policies of delay in retirement age that many are applying countries of the worldamong which find Spain. “You will be able to retire earlier, work shorter work weeks, and that will require almost a philosophical rethinking of how time should be spent (…) We will have created, in a way, free intelligence.” Gates’ approach is not new at all. In 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that technology would reduce the work week to just 15 hours. Almost a century later, a full-time worker in the US spends on average 8.5 hours to work on a working day, while in Spain it is dedicated between 40 and 37.5 hours per week. The promise of more free time has not been fulfilled for almost a hundred years.