The Bogus Four-Day Workweek That AI Supposedly 'Frees Up'
Business leaders are enthusiastically promoting artificial intelligence as a pathway to shorter workweeks and improved work-life balance. However, without significant power shifts, workers are unlikely to share in any productivity gains that AI might generate.
The Utopian Vision of AI-Driven Leisure
Recent headlines have been breathless in their optimism. The Washington Post declared, "These companies say AI is key to their four-day workweeks," while Fortune and the New York Times have published similar articles. The AI spin brigade is operating at full capacity, with executives painting a picture of technological utopia.
Zoom's Eric Yuan told the Times that AI could make everyone's lives better, questioning why we need to work five days a week. He predicted that every company would support three or four-day workweeks, ultimately freeing up everyone's time. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon suggested advancing technology might push the workweek down to just three and a half days.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has openly wondered whether a two-day workweek could represent the future. Elon Musk takes this vision to the extreme, predicting that within 10 to 20 years, AI and robotics advancements will make working optional. He even suggests there will be universal high income and no poverty in the future.
The Reality of Productivity Gains and Worker Compensation
All of this optimistic rhetoric represents pure rubbish when examined against economic realities. Even if AI produces significant productivity gains—which remains an open question given that 95% of organizations are reportedly getting zero return on their generative AI investments—workers are unlikely to see meaningful benefits.
When productivity rises, as theoretically happens when workplaces adopt AI, each worker generates more value by definition. Yet worker productivity has been increasing for years while median wages have barely risen when adjusted for inflation.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: the four-day workweek will most likely come with four days' worth of pay. The three-day workweek will come with three days' worth of compensation. As AI takes over current work responsibilities, most workers will probably become poorer or need to take additional jobs to maintain their current income levels.
Keynes's Failed Prediction and Modern Inequality
In his 1930 essay "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren," the great British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030, productivity gains would create an age of abundance where no one would worry about making money. He believed our biggest problem would be how to use all our leisure time wisely.
We're just five years away from Keynes's magic year, but his prediction appears wildly incorrect. Rather than creating widespread abundance, new technologies have contributed to a two-tiered society comprising a few individuals with extraordinary wealth and a vast number of people barely making ends meet.
The Distribution Dilemma and Power Dynamics
AI is likely to further widen existing inequality. Imagine a device capable of producing everything you could possibly desire—a modern Aladdin's lamp. This sounds wonderful until you realize that no one will be able to purchase such a device because no one will have means of earning money, since the device does everything.
While this scenario is obviously fanciful, the underlying dilemma is very real. Productivity gains are theoretically positive, but the rarely discussed question concerns how these gains will be distributed throughout society. When more can be accomplished by fewer people, who receives compensation for what work? This question ultimately comes down to power dynamics.
Unless workers possess sufficient power to demand a share in productivity gains, profits will flow to an ever-shrinking circle of owners, leaving most people with less money to purchase what can be produced. If the five-day workweek with five days of pay shrinks to four days with four days of pay, and then to three, and perhaps eventually to two or one day, AI will supplant most people's work while driving down take-home compensation.
Potential Pathways to Fair Distribution
This outcome isn't necessarily our predetermined fate. If AI does deliver substantial productivity gains, average working people could potentially secure a share through bargaining power. Labor unions once provided such power, with over a third of the private-sector workforce unionized forty years ago. Today, that figure stands at only 6%, representing minimal collective strength.
This leaves politics as the remaining avenue. Will average working people gain the political muscle to demand a fair share of AI's productivity gains? This depends on whether one of the dominant political parties will demand and enact laws that distribute these gains more equitably—perhaps through wealth taxes financing childcare, elder care, and healthcare programs.
Alternatively, perhaps a third party dedicated to workers' interests might emerge. In the meantime, don't fall for the breathless rhetoric about AI allowing employers to "free up" employees' time. The real question concerns whether AI's productivity gains, if they materialize, will be shared with workers. The truth remains that employers won't distribute these gains unless they're compelled to do so through political or economic pressure.
