I’ve heard this claim now really often: at conferences, in keynotes, even in casual conversations: “With AI, we’ll soon only need to work two or three days a week.” The narrative is seductive, I admit: technology will finally liberate us from the grind, freeing up time for creativity, family, leisure, hobbies – who would not want that? Who would not want to believe that? It sounds like StarTrek! Silicon Valley CEOs, futurists and tech optimists repeat this vision again and again, as if it were just a matter of time AI renders the 40-hour workweek obsolete.
But at some point, I got suspicious. Not because I doubt the power of AI or so – it’s clearly heavily impacting industries. From manufacturing to customer service, IT itself, everything that has to do with digital imaging … GenAI is transforming several processes. — No, I got suspicios because I started to notice that every time someone made this claim, it was framed as a natural consequence of technological progress. As if history had a built-in mechanism to ensure that efficiency gains would automatically translate into more free time for workers. And that’s when I wondered:
Why should a company just pay me the same amount even though I’m working significantly fewer hours? Did that ever happen before?
Did the major technological revolutions – from the Industrial Revolution to the rise of computers (or the internet) – just simply lead to a work time reduction? I never heard or read about that. And in fact … usually productivity surged, but working conditions only improved when workers, unions, and governments forced the change to happen. Everything else would have been surprising! Businesses are profit-driven and not charitable organizations. Let’s look at historical examples to show how technological progress has not automatically reduced working hours.
The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution (late 18th to mid-19th century) introduced mechanized production, steam power, and factories. These innovations dramatically increased output, making goods cheaper and more abundant than ever before.
Working Conditions
Despite the productivity gains , working conditions weren’t so great (see for example Life in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution). Working hours (12+ hours per day, often only with Sunday off) didn’t decrease and even child labor continued to exist.
Working Hours Decrease
The 8-hour workday didn’t emerge naturally from technological progress. It was mainly the result of decades of labor struggles, Unions, Strikes and Labor Movements, reformers and politicians (Eight-hour day movement). Fun Fact from the Wikipedia page:
“A 12-hour day was reintroduced [in Germany] by a right-wing government during the occupation of the Ruhr and subsequent hyperinflation crisis in 1923″ (Link)
The Computer Age
The late 20th century brought the rise of computers, automation, and digital technology. The innovations transformed industries, from manufacturing to office work, making production faster and more efficient. – That sounds like GenAI-light, doesn’t it?
But the whole efficiency gain did not materialize in a quick, massive drop in working time (Charts from ourworldindata.org). The increased productivity was great, no doupt! But the impact to working time, … Between 1970 and 2020, U.S. productivity rose quite a bit, but the average workweek barely changed, hovering around 40 hours (Our World in Data, OECD).
Conclusion
Working times HAVE reduced massively in the last 150 years (see here). There’s no doubt about that. But this was rarely down to the goodwill of the companies that have benefited from technological progress.
This raises the question: Why is the narrative of the 2-3 day workweek still being promoted so repeatedly when it’s historically untenable? Is it naivety, tech optimism, or deliberate intent? Maybe all of them. – Undoubtedly, it fuels and legitimizes the agenda of the major tech companies (well, the investments have to pay off sooner or later!). And at the same time, it diminishes the discussion about government regulation of the impact of AI.
The next time you hear someone claim that AI will soon reduce our workweeks to 2-3 days, ask yourself: Who benefits from this story? And more importantly: Who’s really fighting for our time?
