AI Fails to Deliver a 4-Day Work Week - Especially at AI Companies (bbc.com)
- Reference: 0184982258
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/08/15/079216/ai-fails-to-deliver-a-4-day-work-week---especially-at-ai-companies
- Source link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgx4yd1gl2o
> However, a former OpenAI technical employee who left the company last year told the BBC the firm never actually trialled the four-day work week it suggested others should try while they were there. Instead, the person described what was often a gruelling work culture marked by frequent "crisis meetings", working on weekends, and "super cut-throat" performance reviews that would see colleagues suddenly let go... [T]he former OpenAI employee said they would put in at least 70 hours a week, much more than they did in previous tech jobs...
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> Other companies have also pushed the idea that AI will effectively reduce the number of hours people need to work, for better or worse. [At OpenAI and Anthropic] sprints can stretch on for many weeks and top 90 hours of work in a seven-day period, tech workers that the BBC spoke to for this story said... At Meta, workers said they have been abruptly pushed onto teams this year doing AI work being treated as urgent... The hours on such teams at Meta are often long, with staff working into the night, on weekends, and feeling they are "on call" during the hours they are not working, according to descriptions of the work from the current and former employees...
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> Some new research suggests that AI tools are making people's workloads even more burdensome. [4]A study out of UC Berkeley followed hundreds of workers at a US tech company for eight months as they used AI. It found the employees "worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day"... The UC Berkeley research found that the workload of tech employees was expanded in part because of the need to constantly check the output of AI tools.
In the article Neil Thompson, an innovation scholar at MIT, pointed out a problem with estimates that AI will ease the workload on humans. "People assume that 20% less work means four-day weeks. But new work emerges."
The BBC also points out helpfully that "there are [5]no limits in the U.S. on how many hours a person over the age of 16 can work." (While in the UK and Europe, "laws limit a working week to 48 hours, including overtime.")
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [6]hadleyburg for sharing the article.
[1] https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/it-prediction-ai-could-help-realize-the-dream-of-the-four-day-work-week
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgx4yd1gl2o
[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8x71ejrp92o
[4] https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it
[5] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa
[6] https://www.slashdot.org/~hadleyburg
"AI fails to deliver" (Score:2)
There I fixed it for you
A director's prediction failed - I'm shocked (Score:2)
Google's higher-ups can't even figure out how to "manage" people unless they're physically in the office... why would anyone think one of them would have enough insight to predict something like AI's impacts?
As expected (Score:3)
Immature tech is exaggerated by overoptimistic pundits and hypemongers in order to attract investment.
Genuine progress is being made, and the tech continues to improve.
But it's not just the tech. People need to figure out how to use it effectively.
This takes time.
Re: (Score:2)
You forgot clueless investors that are gullible and ready to believe any shit they get fed from the tech companies.
Now that we're several trillion dollars into this hype, guess what happens if it doesn't pan out. The clueless investors will go clamoring to the government for a bail out threatening fire and brimstone, dogs and cats living together, the real wrath of god (pick one, any will do) kind of stuff. And taxpayers will get shafted again, except this time it will be much, much worse than anything in t
Re: (Score:2)
One correction, that is 40T not 40B. And yes Bessent and others in the dump administration complained how Biden's treasury dept was doing mainly short term debt not longer 10/30 year debt. The "mix" of debt offerings had moved towards short. Dumpie's back then cried bad fiscal management. Well there was a reason and they are finding out themselves. Buyers of T-debt want a substantial premium for longer duration debt. And that turns out to be a problem for debt cost. 30 year is around 5.25 now I think, and h
It did even better (Score:2)
All of the people who were replaced by AI technically have a zero day work week now. AI has clearly exceeded expectations! Quick, pour even more money into the pit and don't ask whether or not it's actually effective.
illogical (Score:4, Insightful)
The 4 day work week is a logical fallacy. At what point do companies decide to give regular employees more pay for less work? At a time when they don't really need as many employees. That's never going to happen. They have never felt any obligation to share the rewards of productivity.
Re: (Score:1)
Agree with this. The 5 day workweek was established because it was the maximum that employees were willing to tolerate before revolt. The productivity of the employees was not and will not ever be a factor in the length of the workweek.
EU's working time directive (Score:4, Interesting)
The Working Time Directive was instituted in the 1980's. Margret Thatcher was very upset that the UK had to follow this directive to remain in the EU.
The Working Time Directive limits weekly working time to an average of 48 hours per week over and 17 week reference period. Companies sometimes get exemptions from key employees, but there can't be no coercion to sign such an agreement. The exemptions are usually for key employees.
Since the UK left the EU, there has been no substantial changes to the regulation. Instead, the original domestic legislation implementing it—the UK's Working Time Regulations—was converted into UK law to maintain legal continuity, and core worker protections regarding maximum working hours and paid holiday remain active
In contrast to the United States, there is no limit on working time, and the only option the employee has is to quit (Employment-at-will). There are also 2 distinct classes of workers. Those which are non-exempt get overtime pay after 40 hours of work in a week, while those which are "exempt" only get their base salary regardless of how many hours they have to work. There is a dividing line which lists certain job requirements as those falling under exempt, and those which are non-exempt. Managers,Engineers, Accountants, and a lot of indirect labor positions are usually exempt.
With so many people in the USA living paycheck to paycheck, quitting due to excessive overtime is very unlikely
CEOs can make ANY lie about AI (Score:2)
...on 5th Ave. and not lose any investors.
lower work week is a red herring (Score:4, Insightful)
John Maynard Keynes predicted that his grandkids would work just 15 hours a week. How was he so naïve? Here is what always happens if work starts getting done faster: The employees think "hey we can leave early or take friday off". The boss thinks "Well shit, I can cut headcount, everyone will work a bit harder but I'll boost profits this quarter"
Re: (Score:2)
"within a century (by 2030), rapid technological progress would create so much wealth and productivity that people would only need to work a 15-hour workweek"
You have to wait 4 more years before you can claim that he was wrong. And note that he didn't say that people would work 15 hour weeks, he said that would need to. I actually could do that, I could work for 15 hours only and live with that, but I have decided to work more and retire early.
More Burdensome (Score:4, Insightful)
> The UC Berkeley research found that the workload of tech employees was expanded in part because of the need to constantly check the output of AI tools.
Hours also increase in a vane attempt to achieve/maintain the increased production levels expected of AI enhancement. Regardless of whether or not said increased production actually occurs or not.
People are running faster and longer, going nowhere on their hamster wheels, and actual production remains only slightly increased at best.
Once again. (Score:4, Insightful)
The only people who make predictions that a 4 day workweek is coming soon are the exact same people who have the authority to make it happen today, but don't.
Shame about inflation (Score:2)
If the four day week ever happens, Gen Z won't afford to be able to have three days not working at these prices
Solving a problem that doesn't need to be solved. (Score:2)
It sounds like they are pitching the idea of a 4-day week so that people working less creates the work for AI, instead of trying to solve the problems that already exist.
So where are the actual savings? (Score:2)
And who's going to foot the bill? You're asking us to pay our employees the same for less and then pay for your tokens on top of it.
It's like you're asking companies to shoot themselves in the foot, reduce resource-hours, create a backlog of work just so that you can come and fix it. How about you stop asking for scraps and actually try do some quality work, something actually useful?
AI cleanup on asile 4 (Score:2)
> The UC Berkeley research found that the workload of tech employees was expanded in part because of the need to constantly check the output of AI tools.
It takes effort to clean up someone else's slop, even, or especially, AI slop, sometimes more effort than simply doing it yourself.
4 Day work week... (Score:1)
Our work week is artificial in the first place. Nothing stops us from going to a 4, or even a 3 day work week now. 40 hour work week is not a requirement other then some construct of what we deemed reasonable at the time. When we were "simple" hunters and gatherers, we really didn't have a '7 day' week. Everyone did was was needed, and as technology developed, we were able to relax more. Even Normay, and the Netherlands have figured out they could make the work week shorter, so why can't the rest of us?
Who could have seen that coming? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who actually believes AI will cause people to work less hours is a complete fuckin moron.
The literal developers of AI should know better.
Greed is blind. (Score:2)
> Anyone who actually believes AI will cause people to work less hours is a complete fuckin moron.
> The literal developers of AI should know better.
If we started calling it ToddlerAI (for accuracy), perhaps the literal Chief Executive Officers firing humans to replace them with AI would get a clue.
You know, before they're arguing with a Board looking to replace expensive executives with Toddler-AI because it's clearly good enough.
Re: (Score:2)
They gotta sell the lie for as long as possible. Once the bubble bursts they can run off with all that loot.
Re: (Score:2)
At this point, I'm thinking that AI is really just work outsourcing in another form.
Really, that's what the last 25 years of IT has been about... outsourcing the boring repetitive coding and tech support overseas, outsourcing in-house data centers to cloud computing data centers, replacing locally installed software with SAAS solutions that run in a browser, and getting AI agents to (once again) outsource the boring repetitive coding and tech support to someone else.
Re: (Score:2)
Actual quote was "by 2025, AI will allow developers to complete a week’s worth of work in four days".