Why does technology and AI’s development extend the working day?

It is not worth explaining how Chatgpt and other applications based on artificial intelligence simplify our lives. The tasks where the clock lasts for a few seconds perform algorithms. This saves significant time, but then why do we still work for 8 hours a day?

What is “Jevons Paradox” and how the working day affects the duration

Who doesn’t try to work less, but it gets more? This question worries both employees and employers. For a long time, it was seen that technology would save our time from routine in favor of creative leisure and self -development. In the 1930s, John Meinard Keynes, one of the founders of macroeconomics, reached this conclusion. He believed that performance would increase so much that people would be enough for a 15 -hour working week for prosperity. The skeptic of his views will look utopian because he is just partially right. What do we actually see?

The digital revolution, which started in the 1980s and continued to date, gave us mobile phones (and later smartphones), computers, internet and social networks. As a result, the boundaries between the personal and field of work began to be washed, and after the coronavirus pandema, this trend concentrated significantly. True, the work of sociologists from Oxford University has shown that free employees and employees are more frequently encountered than full -time employees. This is because there is no fixed program.

Artificial intelligence had to assume the burden of routine tasks to ensure a balance of work-life. And the 2024 Thomson Reuters survey, where 2200 experts around the world participated in the world, showed the effectiveness of the transition to a 4 -day working week, taking into account the preservation of previous salary and performance. And such an opportunity was really discussed in the United States and Great Britain, long before Openai’s launching Chatgpt. In practice, however, it turned out how closely the employee’s work is related to artificial intelligence, the so much it works. This is confirmed by Wei Jiang and his colleagues from Emory University.

How does the verification of the contradictory hypotheses of the studies arise? As a result, II cannot reduce and increase the load at the same time.

This paradox was announced in 1865 by British economist William Stanley Jevons, one of the founders of the marginal benefit theory. According to the economic concept, the more a person uses, the more he enjoyed it. In other words, Shakespeare’s “excess taste kills the taste.” But that’s not all. In his book “Coal Question”, Jevons claimed that more advanced steam engines consume less coal, but their use would lead to more coal consumption than past models. According to the logic, the promotion of powerful engines will make energy cheaper, which means that manufacturers will greatly introduce to all industries from agriculture to all industries. And so it happened – coal demand increased. As a result, the burden on the workers increased.

Similarly, “Jevons Paradox” works with artificial intelligence. The more advanced it becomes, the more actively in different industries will be introduced, the more it will be cheaper and more accessible, the more we will use technology, the more time we will spend.

The truth is that technology changes human labor in two ways. In the first case, a person improves the quality of the employee in the performance of the tasks. In the second case, an increase in the employee’s work amount occurs. Since the worker has a production factor and increases the AI ​​productivity, the employer only increases the demand for labor, ie he increases the number of duties and does not reduce or leave the same. Accordingly, the duration of the working day increases with load. According to various estimates, the employee’s working time per week increases almost 2 hours.

Capture is that AI reduces labor, but changes its attitude to its value.

If most of the work is made for your algorithms, how can an employer evaluate the contribution of an employee? Do you pay less? Do more? Usually inclined to the second option. As a result, the employee at the remaining hours is not released, but is further loaded.

Technology is much easier to replace a person. Cars undertake the most dangerous, dirty and routine work. In this case, the profession only disappears: people lose their jobs and are forced to be re -educated. So, the Keynes here has been correct, because when the last 200 years of working week is 60 hours, then into 50 hours, and today the average working week is 40 hours.

In the case of artificial intelligence, it does not work, because it is just a tool (like a smartphone or a computer lacking autonomy).

From dawn to sunset

In order to change the attitude of employers’ attitude to work where they are used, you will need to review the prize from number to quality. Having technology requires more advanced competence. As the studies show, the load will fall on the shoulders of professionals. In particular, the tendency focused on the introduction of the productive AI in 2023, especially at the end of 2022 Chatgpt. Basically, an increase in the study in connection with artificial intelligence will affect management systems, logistics, credit consultants, archives testists, engineers, scientists, technology experts, mapackers, analysts.

According to Economist Nuriel Rubini, in the future, we will encounter a situation in which 10-20% of the main study of the main study will fall on their shoulders, while others will be in a world where there is no suitable job for them. And the higher the demand for a specialist, the harder it works. According to approximate estimates, 120 hours a week. In general, a future Siberpan.

LinkedIn Anish Raman’s president, in his speech with the New York Times, said that the company plans to reduce jobs with the implementation of AI. Vitaly Terententyev, General Director of Headhunter recruitment service, believes that artificial intelligence and robotic development only transforms the labor market, but will not reduce the number of jobs. For example, there is no lack of labor in Russia, there is a shortage of trained personnel.

The main task of the modern labor market is that employers learn to effectively distribute the employee’s free time. It is not enough to introduce artificial intelligence to the workflow – this will not lead to improvement in quality of life. It is important to formulate new labor assessment principles and to transform corporate culture and structures themselves. Anonymous Glassdoor questionnaire, where employees are pleased with the conditions of the companies, admitted that the increase in wages did not compensate for the loss time.

Another reason is that the society is not used to, and that less work is normal. David Grebe, a professor of London School of Economics, argued that most of the time of working time was busy with useless jobs (nonsense), and even worse – argued that the technical process would bind us more. And the error is not the economy, but the morality of labor. If Marxists highlight productive jobs, at the beginning of the 20th century, capitalists actively began to spend money: to build schools and hospitals, to help homeless.

The idea began to rule that any work was noble in itself. And that took us to the fact that a person who did not work lost his moral appearance. You can make an analogy in Asian countries where employees are not customary to leave the head later, otherwise you are not a good person and employee. As a result, no one leaves in time and sometimes sleeps only at the harm of personal life and self -development. Therefore, Martyshkin’s work was replaced by activity. It is more important to show the commitment of the company, not the result.

At the same time, you need to go through a difficult choice to find a job, wait for a few years to advance the career ladder. Nevertheless, the good living conditions provided by technologies allowed us to age more slowly. Therefore, gerontocracy at the summit: The highest positions are not rejected and young ambitious people have to spend the youth in meaningless work. With the development of AI, the tendency is aggravated. In recent years, the “Rat Lifestyle” has gained popularity in China: “Crying People” is rejecting the search for success in favor of low quality life. They eat cheap food, go out and grad. Thus, they rebel against the system that does not allow them to be realized, but only makes passive content consumers. All this is poured to a low level of birth in developed countries.

From this, we can conclude that the transition to a 4 -day week will be more accurate in the long run while maintaining earnings. Moreover, the effectiveness of the studies has been proven. Before talking about the economy, it is important to change the work attitude. Work less time, but it is the norm to bring the same result and get the same salary. However, while increasing capacities, most entrepreneurs tend to be guided with greed. State reforms can set this. I hope the future of humanity is still far from reality from the film “Matrix”.