They’ll never agree to a 4 day work week, because then they know they’ll be looking at a 3 day work week one day.
This is the war that’s coming.
More and more processes are automatic, and AI is now breaking down the last holdout of “manual” jobs.
How will that future, where only a small percentage of mankind actually needs to work, look like? It could be heaven, but it’s shaping up to be hell unless we win these fights.
The future where only some people need to work will literally never come. It relies on the premise that the ownership class will give up ownership. They will not.
The machines that increase the productivity and reduce the need for manual labor will just increase profit for the owner/shareholders. Increases in productivity mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the common person. You already hear this argument now in the form of “I took the risk and put up capital to run the business so I deserve the lions share of profits.” That argument will just become “I put forward the capital to buy the machines that produce the products, why do you deserve any of it!?”
The same could be said for AI. “I paid for the license to run this AGI, why should you get anything from my profit!?”
I mean for some AI at least it was directly trained on material from random internet people. I deserve money from any chatgpt work because I made a lot of Reddit comments.
Unlikely. While a 4 day week generates more profit with happier workers, a 3 day week doesn’t.