the four day work week has been trialed many times and already would have been the same or higher productivity before agents, honestly. if agents get really good let's just go to 3?
> 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.
"Most of the things that we worry about under the mode of capitalism that the U.S practices, that is going to put people out of work, that is going to make people’s lives harder, because corporations will see it as a way to increase their profits and reduce their costs."
I work 3 days one week, 4 days the next week. Never more than 3 days in a row. It's 12 hour shifts, which sucked at first, but I got used to it pretty quick. The free time is amazing. I took 2 days vacation this week and ended up with 9 days off in a row because of the holiday.
> 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, 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.
The best way to take advantage right now is to consult. Take some time off and just do a little on the side. Then again the job market could collapse, so maybe keep your job?
Labor saving tech doesn't lead to more free time, and certainly not in a way that's proportional to the gains of automation. Instead, companies will expect still more productivity. Why give you more time off if they can keep workdays fixed and add still more productivity? Certainly, the competition will do it.
This is certainly a fun exercise in economics. By taking a shortened work-week, should the companies then pay us 80% of our current comp? Or maybe a little less since they will have to pay for the added tokens we are now using as part of our job that we used to do manually (i.e. time)? Or perhaps we are able to justify that now they can save overhead by reducing facilities costs by 20% as well. Oh but maybe their business lease has a continuous occupancy clause and now the reduction in foot traffic causes them to get penalized so they need to reduce our salaries even more. Slippery slope my friend.
I get where the writer is coming from, but it misses one very important point.
>> 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 are thinking of productivity as "code written". And certainly that part of your job will get more productive.
But that is just something you do when you're not in meetings. (or when you're in a meeting, but the camera is off, and you're not really listening). Your real job is to attend meetings. And unfortunately AI can't help with that (yet).
(I'm not even being sarcastic. Most programmers don't realize that they have been hired to have meetings.)
What it can do is free you up from the pesky code-writing part of your job, freeing you up to attend even more meetings. And this does indeed make management happy because (seriously now) their job is having meetings, and you being "unavailable" (because you know, you want to program) was hindering them in the first place.
So no, you can't have Friday off, but now that you mention it, let's set aside that time for "team building" exercises...
I'm fairly certain a lot of people do this. They don't literally take a day off, but just work fewer hours or less hard. And this makes sense, there is a strong incentive to not give away all the productivity gains to your employer.
I was very happy working extra (I won't call them long) hours when I first learned about computing. A bit later on when I started working for financial entities I felt a bit different - the work was interesting, but I just wasn't prepared to sacrifice my time. And if we can have the day off, I think that can only be to the good.
This article is kind of playful, but I think there’s a serious point here that’s not discussed enough. We’re being asked to usher in huge productivity gains by introducing AI to our workflows, but we’re not asking how does it help us? Not a lot of us stand to directly gain from our employers becoming more productive.
I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should be seriously asking in our next all hands meetings if 10x’ing our productivity can get us some days off. Or when our paycheck is going to be multiplied accordingly.
So far we’re all kind of being chumps about this, bragging on Linkedin about all of our new found AI productivity while accepting less job security and no increase in comp.
If you take a 1x dev and a 2x dev and apply an AI force multiplier, do you get a 10x dev and a 20x dev? Or do you get two 10x devs?
If a human element is required to get value from AI, but any human will do, then devs should get minimum wage. If different humans have a different multiplier when you apply them to AI, they should be compensated accordingly. So if the 1x dev can get 5x out of AI, and the 2x dev can get 2x out of AI, you can fire the 2x2 dev, double the salary of the 1x5 dev, and be more productive for less money[1]. Or you can keep both devs, but pay the 1x5 dev slightly better than the 2x2 dev.
This is all assuming you have some valid way of measuring 1x, 2x, 1x5, and 2x2.
[1] Double salary doesn't have to include double insurance, vacation, etc. But there is also the cost of the AI, so...
I have 25 vacation days per year and so does everyone else in Sweden. And we all use them for real it is not like your PTOs. During summer, we make it work but it is a clear standby mode. The upside is we have to staff up too, with regulars and interns.
This is not a tech problem.
This is a you problem.
*Yes salary is way way way way lower. BUT where in the USA could I take a 10min bus (normal people take the bus here not bums) or walk 30-40min to work feeling totally safe even at night? Nevermind I spent 0 on my education in terms of tuition. And live in a city centre, walking to a grocery store with a 60k studio condo? With high speed 5g and fibre. And I hear in the US you have to worry about water or power cuts? Not here lmao.
I mean that simply you make society what you make it.
the concern would be that this new ability will actually increase competition and give us less than we had before
this is not something that can just be blamed on the "CEOs/execs/shareholders" of the world. it is evolutionary competition - unless we can ALL join forces to draw the line somewhere, someone will choose to defect from the agreement to "just work less", because doing so will make them succeed at the expense of others. even if everyone from one country agrees, the other competing country that defects and works 996 with agents will "win" and conquer the lazy country.
I wish I knew what to do to fix it, doesn't seem sustainable but I don't know how to make all of humanity cooperate without doing something even worse
My dad was a stock broker in the late 1970s and remembers when most of trading was 100% manual and firms actually had "runners" who would take stock certificates back and forth between trading firms.
He has this great quote about when computers came out:
"We were told 'computers will save you so much time on work tasks that you won't even know what to do with your free time'. I spent the next 30 years working the same number of hours. "
Computers feel like a pretty good analogy for how AI will affect the workforce.
I suspect productivity will massively increase, the complexity and cognitive load of our work will similarly multiply, and yet we'll still being doing the now-more-complex work in some capacity for a similar number of hours.
153 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 77.5 ms ] threadYou 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.
"Most of the things that we worry about under the mode of capitalism that the U.S practices, that is going to put people out of work, that is going to make people’s lives harder, because corporations will see it as a way to increase their profits and reduce their costs."
https://rickwebb.medium.com/the-economics-of-star-trek-29bab...
Employers have two modes, waste peoples time, or sack them
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.
Appetite grows with eating.
>> 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 are thinking of productivity as "code written". And certainly that part of your job will get more productive.
But that is just something you do when you're not in meetings. (or when you're in a meeting, but the camera is off, and you're not really listening). Your real job is to attend meetings. And unfortunately AI can't help with that (yet).
(I'm not even being sarcastic. Most programmers don't realize that they have been hired to have meetings.)
What it can do is free you up from the pesky code-writing part of your job, freeing you up to attend even more meetings. And this does indeed make management happy because (seriously now) their job is having meetings, and you being "unavailable" (because you know, you want to program) was hindering them in the first place.
So no, you can't have Friday off, but now that you mention it, let's set aside that time for "team building" exercises...
I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should be seriously asking in our next all hands meetings if 10x’ing our productivity can get us some days off. Or when our paycheck is going to be multiplied accordingly.
So far we’re all kind of being chumps about this, bragging on Linkedin about all of our new found AI productivity while accepting less job security and no increase in comp.
If a human element is required to get value from AI, but any human will do, then devs should get minimum wage. If different humans have a different multiplier when you apply them to AI, they should be compensated accordingly. So if the 1x dev can get 5x out of AI, and the 2x dev can get 2x out of AI, you can fire the 2x2 dev, double the salary of the 1x5 dev, and be more productive for less money[1]. Or you can keep both devs, but pay the 1x5 dev slightly better than the 2x2 dev.
This is all assuming you have some valid way of measuring 1x, 2x, 1x5, and 2x2.
[1] Double salary doesn't have to include double insurance, vacation, etc. But there is also the cost of the AI, so...
Edit: markup
This is not a tech problem.
This is a you problem.
*Yes salary is way way way way lower. BUT where in the USA could I take a 10min bus (normal people take the bus here not bums) or walk 30-40min to work feeling totally safe even at night? Nevermind I spent 0 on my education in terms of tuition. And live in a city centre, walking to a grocery store with a 60k studio condo? With high speed 5g and fibre. And I hear in the US you have to worry about water or power cuts? Not here lmao.
I mean that simply you make society what you make it.
Over and out, o7, waiting for [flagged]
the concern would be that this new ability will actually increase competition and give us less than we had before
this is not something that can just be blamed on the "CEOs/execs/shareholders" of the world. it is evolutionary competition - unless we can ALL join forces to draw the line somewhere, someone will choose to defect from the agreement to "just work less", because doing so will make them succeed at the expense of others. even if everyone from one country agrees, the other competing country that defects and works 996 with agents will "win" and conquer the lazy country.
I wish I knew what to do to fix it, doesn't seem sustainable but I don't know how to make all of humanity cooperate without doing something even worse
He has this great quote about when computers came out:
"We were told 'computers will save you so much time on work tasks that you won't even know what to do with your free time'. I spent the next 30 years working the same number of hours. "
I suspect productivity will massively increase, the complexity and cognitive load of our work will similarly multiply, and yet we'll still being doing the now-more-complex work in some capacity for a similar number of hours.
"Too cheap to meter"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_cheap_to_meter
If I was smarter I’d have 200k in my 401k now. Assuming I live cheap in Vietnam and a good yield I’d just live off 10k usd per year