Bill Gates says a 3-day work week where ‘machines can make all the food and stuff’ isn’t a bad idea::“A society where you only have to work three days a week, that’s probably OK,” Bill Gates said.
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.
You should, because they are the ones who will be making the decisions.
Until enough of us say that we don’t care what they think, and we demand better.
Bill Gates isn’t making the decisions anymore and hasn’t been for decades now
He still has more decision making power than anyone I’ve ever met and probably ever will meet.
Yeah, every debate about reducing the number of cars always ends at something like “too many jobs are involved in the car industry, so we need to preserve these jobs, and also people need cars to go work in these factories”. I feel like there will hardly be a deep environmental breakthrough if it doesn’t come with a deep social change.
I would rather work down the road at a bakery than drive to the next town to be an engineering apprentice.
Only one of them pays, however.
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.
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The easy solutiont o that is getting rid of the oligarchs then.
I disagree, I think it’s always just about money. Power hungry-ness comes from the fear of losing your current position, the fear of not advancing and getting left behind. With power they secure the position they have. And it’s not just exclusive to the rich. You can see the exact same pattern in a random fucking McDonald’s.
If it was more profitable (and possible) to automate 40% of work at any given company (the ratio Gates said in this article), everyone would do it in a heartbeat.
Exactly.
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 all about power. The 1% will not give up their power ( = the opportunity to do whatever they want whenever they want) just because it would be good for the 99% to work less.
That’s not how the world works.
The 1% will continue to make sure that they are in control of whatever the next thing is that grant them the same or more power.
If owning AI gives them power they will do whatever necessary to own AI and let’s not kid ourselves here “they” would be you and me if we had the chance.
So some kind of techno quasi-socialism. Sounds great. I wonder who’s gonna get in the way of that, Bill?
Crap, now all the braindead covid conspiracy theorists are going to roll this into their “15 minite cities are open air prisons” conspiracies
I mean…isn’t your pattern recognition starting to ring a little bit?
No.
Because I’m not under the self-important delusion that everything is part of a grand conspiracy out to get me.
It doesn’t ever matter to you people how obvious it becomes over time. Like three years ago when a ridiculous number of people seemed to beleive the policies then wouldn’t result in the reality now, no matter how hard we tried to tell you.
I have learned over the years that reasoned discussion is impossible at this point. You are firmly fixed on your opinions, and I am moderately fixed with mine, and the gulf in between is large.
So I will simply bid you good day.
I’ve not stated an opinion or theory. I asked if you can think.
you sure can’t
that’s almost clever, how long that take you to conceive?
which policies?? You just gonna shit out an example that is generic as fuck and doesn’t actually shed any light on the bs you’re trying to push?
How the hell is a 3day work week result in open air prisons??? You have to back this absurd claim up or literally everything else you say is fucking bullshit.
The fuck are you even talking about?
My pattern recognition tells me there are faces in clouds too, should i believe in cloud giants?
Yes you should, that’s totally the same thing as recognizing trends over time.
You skipped class on the “correlation does not mean causation” day didn’t you?
Walkable cities would be an absolute hellhole, but not for the reasons that conspiracy theorists are claiming. Packing everyone in densely enough to make everything walkable will be a hellhole.
We need affordable options for transportation. Bad weather and the cold also require enclosed vehicles that can’t tip over.
Walkable cities exist. They’re quite nice.
Packing everyone in densely enough to make everything walkable will be a hellhole
Have you ever heard of the concept of “cities”? Everything important is within walking distance in the capital of my country and if not there is great public transport.
I’m sure they’re aware. Hell is other people.
The term walkable includes public transportation. It’s a multiplier on what locations are considered accessible without owning a car. Common misconception.
A lot of words to to express “I’m an American who doesn’t even have a passport.”
Can’t even imagine a walkable city, and talking about it like it’s a far-off sci-fi concept, rather than a lot of peoples’ actual everyday life. Yikes.
I’m even ok with the 0-day work week, as long as I get the salary in time.
That’s The Jetsons, Bill. You’re describing the setting of The Jetsons.
I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed to that kind of lifestyle, so long as you don’t ascribe to the fan theory that the Flintstones takes place on the ground below the towers
Assuming the owners of those machines don’t restrict the people’s access to that “food and stuff”
You think Bill Gates of all people don’t know that? He’s just trying to gaslight us into thinking the stupid-rich gigacorporation owners like him are the solution and not the problem.
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
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.
Isn’t this the primary argument for universal basic income? If you’re keeping unnecessary jobs around just to give people something to do, you’re not actually keeping them for contributions to society… In the long run ubi could probably even be cheaper than paying to prop up obsolete and wholly unnecessary industries.
I do wonder if this is even a money thing as even OpenAI has warned investors that money in the future is not certain. Maybe we are going to be forced to look to alternatives other than money as the means of value?
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
Sounds great. Only question is how we get paid well enough to live. A question which went conveniently unasked and unanswered.
Bill Gates supports higher capital gains taxes as well as EITC which is a form of Negative Income Tax, and in his hypothetical we’re going to need a lot of engineers and mechanics to make it work. He also says a UBI could work if automation production increases in the coming decade or so, but he doesn’t currently support it.
You might think “OH BUT EITC DOESNT REALLY HELP THE POOR BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO HOLD A JOB” but the thing is for businesses to stay open more than 3 days a week they would need to start hiring more people for less hours per week.
okay I’ll take it. Bill is one of the few that’s actually thinking things through at least.
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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.
