Good News: Nobody Has to Work Anymore

Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys, recently urged the youth of India to work 70 hours in a week, or 12 hours a day so that India becomes the top country in the world in terms of GDP. On the contrary, in a recent episode of Trevor Noah’s “What Now?” Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder said that people need to eventually work only three days a week or something, highlighting that AI will do the rest of the work, freeing up labour. 

“The purpose of life is not just to do jobs. So if you eventually get a society where you only have to work three days a week or something, that’s probably OK,” said Gates.

This obviously sparked debates around the world, some siding with Murthy, others with Gates.

Weighing in his thoughts on the issue, Shashi Tharoor, member of Lok Sabha, posted on X, “In other words, if Mr Gates and Mr Narayana Murthy sit down together and work out a compromise, we will end up exactly where we are, with a five-day work week!”

Quiet quitting is the state quo

This year, after moonlighting, a new term was coined called quiet quitting, where employees would do the bare minimum, and are not putting in any efforts to boost productivity. AI is just making it more and more easier.

Since the beginning of the year, Indian companies have also been requested by their employees to follow a four day week, following the footsteps of the UK, where some companies have started it. While Gates recommends a three day week, the debate has been a long running one.

Murthy has said in 2020, “We should take a pledge that we will work 10 hours a day, six days a week – as against 40 hours a week – for the next 2-3 years so that we can fast-track and grow the economy much faster.”

Closer to a relaxed working pace, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says that the next generation of workers will only have to do their jobs for 3.5 days in a week, while also living up to an age of 100 because of the developing technology. 

Similarly, Elon Musk, the proponent of working hard and burning the midnight oil, told the Prime Minister of Britain Rishi Sunak, “You can have a job if you want to have it for personal pleasure. But AI could do everything.” He also added that this will create a universally higher income.

Unfortunately, a lot of people are just lazy. Following the footsteps of what Gates said a few years ago, “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it,” Microsoft, under Satya Nadella, is making everyone lazy, even its own employees.

“77% of people who use Copilot told us that they just don’t want to go back to working without it,” said a confident Jared Spataro, CVP Modern Work and Business Applications of Microsoft, at the company’s annual conference for developers and IT professionals – Microsoft Ignite 2023. 

Richard Baldwin, at a panel at 2023 World Economic Forum’s Growth Summit said, “AI won’t take your job, It’s somebody using AI that will take your job.” And while you think that if AI does everyone’s job, the beach would be filled with everyone doing absolutely nothing. 

So, how many hours?

If an entire generation is studying for jobs that won’t exist, we might not even have jobs left to do in the future. Then the point comes, would anyone even want to work if AI can replace their jobs? The trend seems to be emerging.

In a Reddit discussion, people discuss, instead of worrying about AI stealing your job, you should rather say, “I want AI to steal our jobs.” People are so frustrated with this phenomenon of discussing work hours, they are just giving up to AI to do their jobs, and want to enjoy doing something else.

“Instead of starting to protest ‘We want to work’ and ‘AI steals our jobs’, why don’t we take a book and go to the park to read ? Or a cocktail on the beach ? Or to spend time with our loved ones?” said the Reddit user. Though unrealistic, the idea does not seem that bad.

Contrary to this, Murthy’s point was never about making people work for 70 hours in a week, but it was about urging the youth of India, specifically, to take examples from foreign countries and work towards building our own. Moreover, Gates was focusing on the Western countries, not Indian ones. 

But not to forget AI is already earning money now. For example, a Spanish influencer agency called The Clueless created Aitana Lopez, a Spanish AI model that earns over 3 lakhs per month. So instead of thinking of working less hours, upskilling might be the need to compete against AI.

Considering all this, it seems clear that the idea of Universal Basic Income (UBI) seems to be inching closer than expected. No one would work, and focus on doing better things. That is until “People’s wishes vastly outgrow the available resources,” as a user pointed out. 

Sam Altman’s Worldcoin is already underway, with the same intention. Musk has also been a proponent of UBI.