Bill Gates says a 3-day work week where 'machines can make all the food and stuff' isn't a bad idea

I don’t care what one of the richest people in the world thinks about labour and work/life balance. I care what the average person thinks.

But he’s right about this.

I remember him saying that computers would make people work less by being more productive, but in the end the difference was pocketed by the rich. I don't think it's just a technology problem...

It's not a bad idea, but it also can't exist without a complete re-haul of what it means to live in modern society. Right now, replacing workers and cutting hours means people don't have enough money to live. That is not an acceptable result of automation. I'm not qualified enough to have a reasonable solution to this, but I know it needs to be addressed before we get to that point.

Yeah no shit. The problem is that capitalism hates it.

We will absolutely have automation but the workers will just be fired and all profits will be absorbed by the stockholder.

No cost savings will be passed on the other consumer either.

Assuming the owners of those machines don't restrict the people's access to that "food and stuff"

I think it's unavoidable that humans won't have enough work in the future since more and more stuff get automated.

I also think the evil people at the top knows this and are no strangers to starting wars to get rid of millions of people, when there is no capitalistic benefit for them to exist.

Crap, now all the braindead covid conspiracy theorists are going to roll this into their "15 minite cities are open air prisons" conspiracies

Sounds great. Only question is how we get paid well enough to live. A question which went conveniently unasked and unanswered.

Caveat: I am not a communist. At best, I could be categorized as a "libertarian market socialist".

Cruelty of "hustle" or "work culture" is an imperative for the parasitic ownership class precisely because it ensures the working classes do not have the free time to collectively bargain.

A 3-day work week is antithetical to keeping the proletariat under the boot heel of wage slavery.

As an end goal, with something like UBI and rescaled salaries etc … yes, this obviously true.

The catch is that there’d be a transition period, with uncertainties and states of incomplete capacity either from the AI or the implementation of the rearrangements of salaries etc.

In that phase, there will be opportunities for people or companies to acquire power and wealth over this new future. Who will make and sell the AIs? Who will decide what gets automated and how and with what supervision. That’s where the danger lies. It’s a whole new field of power to grab.

How in the world did Bill Gates go from being a scummy unethical monopolistic figure to now some trusted guru on everything? I need an explanation.

Here's what would happen in capitalist America: entities would own those machines and use them as a means of personal enrichment, it'd displace a ton of human workers, the taxes generated from profits generated wouldn't offset the economic impacts, and then half of the lawmakers would introduce bills that would provide lucrative incentives to those entities if they maintain a certain ratio of human workers and they'd staple a bunch of regressive crap onto it like abortion or whatever, it wouldn't pass because the other half of lawmakers would want to tax the hell out of profits made with those machines, government would shut down 4 times a year, Jeff Bezos builds a vacation home on the moon

When someone says technology will make your work easier, they're looking for an excuse to make you work harder.

He's ok with it as long as the machines are all running Windows, and he gets his fair share.

It would be a great idea except it's incompatible with capitalism. It would take away a lot of jobs from less privileged people and society would do nothing to support them. These people could then be exploited even harder due to job scarcity.

Would be nice though if we could have nice things.

We're already at the point where don't have to work 4 days a week tho.

it will NEVER happen as long as we live in an oligarchy in which the rich are dependent on the lower classes not only for their labor but they also need us to exist for their feelings of superiority. They need people below them to feel good about themselves, they will NEVER let us escape the wage-slave to profit vacuumer dichotomy.

As if we had a 4 day work week already. Maybe start with that?

So some kind of techno quasi-socialism. Sounds great. I wonder who's gonna get in the way of that, Bill?

What a stupid ass... yeah we're just gonna magically erase all the inequality that YOU HELPED CREATE because robots can make us sandwiches. Sure. That'll totally work out.

How are we going to get there, Mr Philanthropist?

But are we still paid the same? Otherwise it would be working 2 jobs which one during "weekends". Much worse.

I'm even ok with the 0-day work week, as long as I get the salary in time.

Capitalism and automation cannot coexist. Fallout 76 players know it very well.

That's The Jetsons, Bill. You're describing the setting of The Jetsons.

What's the plan/roadmap Mr. Gates?

Edit: he solved tuberculosis or something, how about he eliminates an even bigger and more transmissible scourge on society—economic slavery which modern life constitutes

Fuck Bill gates

A 3-day work week would give rise to doing 2 non-concurrent jobs, or a six day work week.

I mean, I could see the benefits - don't like one of your jobs? Quit one, it isn't loosing your whole paycheck. Of course, there are weird structural problems like getting scheduled for those 3 days and random times throughout the week making it really a 7-day job with only 3-days of work, and the whole "you can only work 19.95 hrs and if you work more, then we are required to give you health insurance, so you can't work more than that."

I love that this headline let's ole Bill sound like a zoned out stoner college freshman.

Until machines get real AI and humanity get fucked up. 🤣🤣

Real talking: I believe what the majority of people need are better payment and wealth redistribution.

When I was a child I envisioned fully automated luxury communism driven by robots and AI.

Realizing that wouldn't happen for the dumbest possible reasons as a teen/young adult was immeasurably disappointing

"I mean, it's sure been great for me folks!"

Utopia would be one where humans can focus on art and science to advance our race while the mundane work of running a society is all automated. Stuff like this is not enough, but it seems like a step in the right direction where income remains the same to maintain a standard of living while still producing the same output

No one wants to work. They want to feel valued, and be productive. So let's just make it where working isn't a necessity, pls.

Why 3, we could do 0

I wish him to become a monk or someone like that, and disappear forever

Great, that can be his next project after making sure the COVID vaccine was subject to patent law.

He just wants to own the machines and keep all the wealth they create.

Yea sure, and then slowly slowly even stop those who work 3 per days, right? So the AI csn do all the job. Now they lose money, but once they put AI they will only win money.

AI is good, they develop AI to help us, and then, one day will ditch us.

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This is the best summary I could come up with:

When Noah asked about the threat of artificial intelligence to jobs, Gates said there could one day be a time when humans "don't have to work so hard."

While artificial intelligence could bring about some positive change, Gates has previously acknowledged the risks of AI if it's misused.

Word processing applications didn't do away with office work, but they changed it forever," Gates said at the time.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that the next generation of workers will only have a 3.5-day work week due to AI.

"Your children will live to 100 and not have cancer because of technology and they'll probably be working three and a half days a week," Dimon told Bloomberg in October.

Gates once viewed sleep as lazy and told Noah that his life was all about Microsoft from the ages 18 to 40 years old.

The original article contains 335 words, the summary contains 142 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

If machine's make everything how can we have work for everyone? Even for 3days a year

Great. Now tell us about your flights on Epstein's plane.

You know what sounds even better? Turning this dude into ground meat

What will happen is some people will work more then that at second jobs for more money, and then that will drive down wages for everyone else.

Machines making all the food? I'm out, my pallette deserves better.

Sure, let the food industry do the processing conveniently in three days. Nobody needs these farmers anyway who work their usual six and a half...

/s

Yay! Pay cuts for everyone!