alt Hacker NewsCan we have the day off?
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> If AI is going to 10x our productivity across the board, that means that I should be able to produce the same amount of output by midday on Monday that, in the before times, would have taken all week.
You must be new here. No, that's not how this work. If you are able to produce the same amount of work by midday Monday we expect you to increase the amount of output in the current system by 14 x. And the owners pocket the financial gain from this productivity delta and you should be happy you even have a job.
Elon cares.
This will never happen, the power dynamic between workers and employers is so skewed in favor of employers and it is only getting worse.
Don't like your job? Fine leave, there are tens of millions of H1B's who will do your job for less money and they won't complain because they can't easily leave.
People with more time on their hands start looking around their communities wondering what happened, start questioning politics, start reading statistics instead of headlines and so forth. Oh no, we can't have that
Political disengagement is often "too damn tired"
Its wild to me that the concept of working 80% (1 day off a week) or even 60% (2 days off a week) isn't even a concept in the US, while in europe such part time situations make up a huge share of the work force.
In short, people have been having the day off for decades now. It's called part-time work.
> Childcare for 3 small children is six thousand dollars a month here in California.
Maybe we could afford for women to not leave their kids with strangers for most of their waking hours? Crazy talk I know.
That’s an idea that’s been around since 1883.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_Be_Lazy
But that has never stuck enough for masses to fight for it. It’s a shame.
Personally, the way I cracked it is by freelancing for an american company and living in France. I can totally take the day off.
Everyone laments how everyone will get "a lot" of days off in the end, but regulation is still a dirty word in here.
Be happy if you can be 10x more productive and charge 1/10 per unit of productivity.
There's no guarantee society needs 10x the productivity.
Yesterday I built a bespoke time keeping and billing tool in my browser for my boutique consulting gig. I got exactly what I needed and I paid about $1.
I think this piece of software could power my business for 2-3 years... If my business is very successful maybe I'll invest $2 to develop a GUI.
No SaaS needed. Software demand was actually surpressed by AI.
I don't need 10x more software. I need simple software at 1/100th the cost, on demand. And AI promises to give it to me. The most beautiful part is there's multiple market entrants competing for my bid.
Imagine OpenAI invented ICE engines and the world was dotted with lakes of crude oil, all we needed was refineries. That's the world we're in.
Now that should make you think.
My best experience of a good working-hours week comes from a school i studied at when a boy. The hours were 11:30AM to 4:30PM; i.e. 5 hours with only a 20/30min break in-between. We slept well, had a good brunch and went to school fresh and energetic. Played outside after school (i.e. exercise), came home at nightfall, did some study (i.e. work), had some entertainment and dinner before hitting the bed.
In today's parlance, this was excellent "work-life balance". If you can, talk to your boss and see whether you can adopt such a work schedule (with slight shifting of the time window as needed).
You can have any days off you wish when you run the company. If you’re an employee then you work the days you were contracted to work. Employees definitionally don’t get to choose their hours.
On a tangent if you’re paying $6000 a month for your three children for childcare you are better off getting a Nanny for significantly lesser than that
Workers need to have more leverage for them to be able to independently assert their working hours. People with such luxury become contractors or proprietors. The rest need collective bargaining.
Here’s your occasional reminder that US software engineers should unionize.
Scott Alexander's 2014 essay, Meditations on Moloch, explains why we ended up in this rat king of human misery rather than a utopia. I recommend it:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
basically, we can blame greedy corporate overlords, and that's cathartic, and somewhat correct, but we can (and have) ended up in a hell of our own making even with every individual wanting to do better. the boss that wants to let workers have the day off can't afford to, because the competition makes workers do 8x5. the competition lays off workers to pay for more tokens, because their competitors are. it's a bad game equilibrium.
labor laws are the reason we have the five day work week. we needed overtime to dissuade employers from defecting from the policy. we need coordination to keep AI from turning out like children working the bobbins in old-timey textile factories.
No because the Epsteinist Class in charge have decided to make it zero sum. Therefore it's a fight to the death. Which is why with Ai we're 10x more productive and either 10x more busy or fired and on our way to food stamps
here, here.
lmao Corporate had a hissy fit from people working full weeks at home. The 4-day work week will never* come to the US.
* - not while any of us reading this are under 65.
Marx showed this was an expression of one the central contradictions more than a century ago. Seriously it’s never too late to read about why our conditions only ever deteriorate under capitalism.
Capitalists moralize a lot about people becoming “lazy” or not having “direction” if society subsidizes not working - and yet their entire mission is centered around deploying money, letting money “work.”
If capital is doing the work, why on earth are they getting paid?
1 And afterward Moses and Aaron came, and said unto Pharaoh: 'Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: Let My people go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness.'2 And Pharaoh said: 'Who is the LORD, that I should hearken unto His voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, and moreover I will not let Israel go.'
3 And they said: 'The God of the Hebrews hath met with us. Let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice unto the LORD our God; lest He fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.'4 And the king of Egypt said unto them: 'Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, cause the people to break loose from their work? get you unto your burdens.'5 And Pharaoh said: 'Behold, the people of the land are now many, and will ye make them rest from their burdens?'6 And the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying:7 'Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore. Let them go and gather straw for themselves.8 And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish aught thereof; for they are idle; therefore they cry, saying: Let us go and sacrifice to our God.9 Let heavier work be laid upon the men, that they may labour therein; and let them not regard lying words.'
10 And the taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spoke to the people, saying: 'Thus saith Pharaoh: I will not give you straw.11 Go yourselves, get you straw where ye can find it; for nought of your work shall be diminished.'12 So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw.13 And the taskmasters were urgent, saying: 'Fulfil your work, your daily task, as when there was straw.'14 And the officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, saying: 'Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your appointed task in making brick both yesterday and today as heretofore?'
As AI gets more successful in taking away bullshit makework, instead of having days off or doing something else meaningful for the company, the bullshit makework just multiplies to keep everyone and everything just as busy as before, like kipple.
And then this phenomenon is being called 10x productivity and celebrated.
This is why we cannot have nice things.
/me is off to rewatch They Live
Silly you, the 9-5 5days a week schedule was introduced by ford in his factories, did they change that when automation was introduced later? Internet? Nope. And this 9-5 is actually 7-6 if you count the commute.
Speaking of AI, it’s been what, 3 years since it became mainstream? Did the employees wellbeing’s become better? Are the codes better? Do we have a breakthrough innovations that changed fundamentally in how we use/deal with xyz? All I hear is more work, more anxiety, more cost for some tokens, so I am not entirely sure about the “productivity increase” claim.
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i really dislike lazy bums. you are in a position to use great tools for productivity and you're not inspired to work harder? you should be fired on the spot.
Sorry, I'd rather have a higher quality of living for most people (as evidenced by any huge development in technology) rather than humanity stagnating. This post is quite myopic.
> If AI is going to 10x our productivity across the board, that means that I should be able to produce the same amount of output by midday on Monday that, in the before times, would have taken all week.
That would be true if you and only you are 10x more productive than anyone else. Since everyone is now 10x more productive it just means you have to work just as much as before since you're competition can outwork you. I don't get why people don't understand this.
Sorry, not possible. The goal of AI is to build additional value for shareholders, not to improve anyone's else's lives.