Could AI Bring Us Four-Day Workweeks? (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0180505807
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/03/0510258/could-ai-bring-us-four-day-workweeks
- Source link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/could-2026-4-day-workweek-090200497.html
"More companies may move toward a shortened workweek, several executives and researchers predict, as workers, especially those in younger generations, continue to push for better work-life balance." And "several companies — especially those with a largely remote workforce — have adjusted their work rhythm after delegating many tasks to AI..."
> AI "has such a potential to have so much labor savings, you'll see firms shift to a four-day week in an evolutionary way," said Juliet Schor, an economist and sociologist at Boston College who has studied the subject. "There's enough social consensus that people are exhausted and stressed...." Small and medium businesses often adopt shortened workweeks to compete with big salaries for new hires and retention, Schor said. That's how Peak PEO, a London-based service that helps companies expand globally with teams in different locations, thought about its strategy... CEO Alex Voakes said that job openings that used to get two applications jumped to 350 after the change.
"Some of the world's most influential business leaders have publicly suggested the shift may be inevitable," [2]adds Fortune :
> Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has said advancing technology could eventually push the workweek down to just three-and-a-half days. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates has gone further, openly questioning whether a two-day workweek could be the future. Elon Musk has taken the idea to its logical extreme, positing that the need to work altogether could cease... Tech innovation could "probably" lead to a transition toward four-day workweeks, [Nvidia CEO Jensen] Huang [3]said on Fox Business in August...
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/these-companies-say-ai-is-key-to-their-four-day-workweeks/ar-AA1Tl2q7
[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/could-2026-4-day-workweek-090200497.html
[3] https://fortune.com/2025/08/29/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-4-day-work-week-productivity/
Nope. (Score:4, Insightful)
âoeLabour savingsâ just means job cuts. In the long distant past increasing productivity led to better wages, now it just means increased profits for the shareholders. If AI increases productivity 20%, well why not just cut 20% of the workforce and pocket the difference?
Re: Nope. (Score:2)
And if you were planning to do that, it would be good to get the workforce onboard by ginning up stories about 4-day work weeks, because you need that current workforce to get the AI systems in place.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, the AI-revolution will be hugely different to various "revolutions" that came before and not in a good way.
The industrial revolution saw manufacturing automated -- but the jobs that were eliminated were usually low-skill laboring ones. People could retrain and take on more skilled work with higher pay so the net earnings of the workforce actually increased.
The IT-revolution once again saw relatively unskilled roles automated by computers and once again people could retrain for more skilled rolls that
Re: Nope. (Score:2)
you can create two linear equations to model the optimum work week given a certain degree of productivity.
[1]https://www.scry.llc/2024/12/2... [scry.llc]
as productivity increases, the work week has to decline to stay at the optimum point.
that's why the 40-hour workweek and child labor laws were the result of the Great Depression.
[1] https://www.scry.llc/2024/12/27/work-week/
and we have robo cars with EULA's that wipe away l (Score:2)
and we have robo cars with EULA's that wipe away liability
Re: Nope. (Score:2)
because you get more customers if you redistribute the increased income.
layoffs means less customers.
Every singe one of those (Score:3)
Trillionaires run/ran a 9-9-6 white-collar-sweatshop, or wishes that they could. Any talk you hear from the CEOs about shorter workweeks should be put in the same bin that holds their statements about corporate governance, work-life balance, DEI, and anything about AGW or the environment. They don’t give a rats ass about that stuff, but society sometimes expects them to look deeply into the camera and let a tear roll down their cheek, but only wink-wink-ironically, because what society REALLY expects them to do is a) make money, b) make money, c) make money and d) make money. If they fail at those criteria, they get quickly replaced without a second thought, and they know it.
No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wages. AI exists to solve the problem of paying wages. That is the problem AI solves.
Did you ever have a lazy coworker? Somebody who didn't do their job and you had to pull their weight? Of course you did everybody's had that experience.
You remember that feeling of resentment? Again of course you do.
When AI puts a shitload of people out of work permanently are you going to have your taxpayer money given to them while you're working 40 50 or 60 hours a week so that they can sit around playing Xbox? No because you resent them.
That feeling of resentment is easily exploitable by the people who are going to own all the ai. Because AI is capital.
There isn't going to be any Ubi because the majority of people are going to get angry at the thought of what they have being taken from them and given to somebody else. And that feeling is going to be used by trillionaires to prevent any effort to take the money from them and spread it along.
Unless you can figure out a solution to that resentment then we're going to become a techno funeral civilization with a few thousand people living like gods, a few thousand more engineers keeping those gods going and then a few thousand thugs keeping the engineers in line. The rest of us will live like American native Americans of the kind on the worst reservations before the casinos. There won't be any capitalism and I won't be any money or exchange of goods because the people in charge have had enough of being dependent on consumers and employees.
I don't know what you do about that resentment. I know the majority of people here heavily experience it.
I can tell you whenever I brought up that resentment nobody has had an answer for it. They try to explain away why we need to do such and such solution they have to the automation crisis but you can't explain away that resentment it's too deep a feeling.
Re: No. (Score:2)
UBI doesn't make sense when you consider that all countries suddenly have millions of surplus people. There is no need for immigration for example when humans are costs rather than resources, in fact the temptation is surely to encourage mass migration - millions of bored humans represents a massive security nightmare. Star Trek hints at a 'post scarcity' future but getting that point would involve the sort of decision making we are currently not capable of, and presumably some pretty bad times preceding th
Why? (Score:3)
Why would the owners of the business not take larger profits rather than let us work fewer hours? Our 40 hour average work-week has survived the rise of microcomputers and the Internet and if anything we need to work even longer (or be paid more) to even afford property - I see absolutely no sign that workers will be able to work less, when all signs point to more insecurity, higher unemployment and generally tougher conditions
Funny (Score:2)
I recall in primary school, circa 1970, a teacher telling us that in the future we would only work 4 days a week. Here I am 2 years short of retiring and still waiting for my 4 day working week...
No. (Score:4, Insightful)
It cannot do so. Neither "AI" nor a path to achieving it exist. For now you get LLMs.
That aside, the trend over most of the last century now has been that as productivity enhancement tools have continue to improve and workers produce more value, that value keeps getting directed to the most wealthy overall and real wages tend to remain flat. This trend is not going to change without major societal shakeup.
This is possible (Score:1)
Yes, I'm sure corporation are going to jump at the chance to slash white collar worker's wages by 20%.
4 day work week, two month pto, ubi, blah blah (Score:1)
If AI makes people more productive, it would stand to reason that it would create more wealth with the same amount of effort.
In such an environment, what exactly would be the incentive to work less given that you can get more from working the same?
Mechanization didn't shorten the work week. Automation didn't shorten the work week.
Why would AI be different?
Re: (Score:2)
> Automation didn't shorten the work week. Automation didn't shorten the work week.
Yes it did. It shortened the work week from six days to five, and shortened the work day to eight hours.
Hard to believe in these our enlightened times, but yes, in 1830, people used to work 69.1 hour work weeks.
Re: 4 day work week, two month pto, ubi, blah blah (Score:1)
If it's mostly subsistence agriculture, I would think it's logically a little hard to draw the distinction between work and not work in the sense of punching the clock and kicking back after 5.
I'm willing to be corrected here, but I'd assume back in 1830 is farmer bob and fam worked the soil so they could eat 70 hours a week and sold maybe a 10% surplus at market, they had a 7 hour work week.
Re: (Score:1)
> Automation didn't shorten the work week. Automation didn't shorten the work week.
Yes it did. It shortened the work week from six days to five, and shortened the work day to eight hours.
This part needs clarification. Automation shortened the work week in the sense that it exacerbated a problem whose resolution was the 40 hour workweek. What I mean to clarify is, employers didn't just say, great, now with automation we only need our employees to work 40 hours per week . They said the opposite. Industrial machines could run long hours tirelessly, so employers (factory owners, etc.) had empl
Yes (Score:1)
First a 4 day work week, then 3, then 2, then 1. Everyone knows what comes next after 0 and hopefully it's UBI.
Re: (Score:2)
It's going to come.
But there will be a transition period of around 10-ish years (I predicted 20 years in slashdot about 15-20 years ago, I correct myself due to the fast development and the current world situation) where chaos will reign.
AI tools are fantastic, I use them extensively too, but right now it's so early that it needs a lot of hand-holding, agent management, scaffolding and more so it's going to rule out a TON of people who think they can just replace professionals just like that, ain't gonna ha
Re: (Score:2)
> - Then slowly new governments arise, challenge the old powers and introduce UBI in selected areas.
"Selected" areas? I can agree with that, but only if you allow that those areas will cover between 50% and 90% of the population.
> - Mandatory activation programs like civil duty, street patrolling, elderly neighborhood care, clean streets etc. will be introduced for them.
That's probably impractical if my 50%-to-90% contention is anywhere close to accurate. I think it more likely that the roles you mention will be combined with private policing / security activities funded by and under the control of the corporations; which by then will also be the official and only governments, because what we're facing is the "company town" concept extended acros
No, only govt regulation can bring 4 day weeks (Score:2)
'nuff said.
Betteridge's Law of Headlines (Score:2)
... applies again.
More specifically, it could , but it won't .
lazy (Score:2)
How will AI convince wealthy people to give the same amount of money to people working fewer hours? They will never be happy with any amount of production. The workers will take the blame for being lazy. It's already happening.
Propagandistic puff pieces (Score:2)
Previous discussions of and experiments with 4-day work weeks were always predicated on maintaining the same compensation as 5-day weeks provided. I read both articles; conspicuous by its absence was anything indicating that workers in this new AI utopia would continue to receive 5 days' worth of pay for their oh-so-wonderful 4-day weeks. I think the AI fluffers were counting on readers overlooking that minor detail.
However, the Yahoo article did yield yet another brain addled Elon bloviation stating that "
need to cap the extreme OT / unpaid on call (Score:2)
need to cap the extreme OT / unpaid on call
Trying to sell it (Score:2)
It won't work. AI is a plague
No (Score:2)
Stop posting this propaganda bullshit
Sure, we'll get 4 day work weeks (Score:5, Insightful)
and 4 day pay days
Re: Sure, we'll get 4 day work weeks (Score:2)
My girlfriend just got put on a 4-day week with her same salary.
Re: Sure, we'll get 4 day work weeks (Score:2)
Ahh that solves it we will all be fine then phew!
Re: Sure, we'll get 4 day work weeks (Score:2)
Too bad she's made up
Re: Sure, we'll get 4 day work weeks (Score:2)
She just goes to a different workplace you wouldn't know it...
Re: (Score:3)
As long as you continue to put in your 80 hours a week, why would they have a problem with a 4-day work week?
Re: (Score:2)
The point about 4 day work weeks is, that people get more productive. If one isn't stressed out, one delivers better work. This doesn't work out on tight schedules for the company, but with AI it might.
Re: Sure, we'll get 4 day work weeks (Score:2)
it's not about "better work".
it's about equilibrium between production and consumption.
[1]https://www.scry.llc/2025/01/2... [scry.llc]
[1] https://www.scry.llc/2025/01/27/equilibrium/
Re: Sure, we'll get 4 day work weeks (Score:3)
the difference will come largely out of real estate prices.
[1]https://www.scry.llc/2025/12/1... [scry.llc]
"The "K-shaped economy" is a hot topic now. Check my workhour graph above from 1873 to 1897 when the job market bifurcated into "new, high income jobs" and "existing, low wage" jobs. That's a variation of the same economic pattern as this "K" curve.
That period was known as The Gilded Age aka The Robber Baron Era and I mention it briefly as my model for today's era in Cost Of Information:"
there's a graph of history of
[1] https://www.scry.llc/2025/12/10/work-week-reminder/
Re: (Score:2)
If our culture experiences any shift involving a lowering of working hours without a lowering of salaries, AI will have nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing at all, even if the promises of enhanced worker productivity are true.
The one and only thing that would result in fewer working hours would be the application of significant political and cultural pressure on the part of the workers. All AI will do, assuming productivity gains are actually realized, is allow employers to reduce staff, since they