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Can we have the day off?

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Re: Can we have the day off?

#71

Post by themanmaran »

lmm wrote: post #42
krashidov wrote: post #22

> 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…

> 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. Why? I don't need 10x more stuff. I'd far rather spend 10x less time working. If we're talking about an actual productivity increase, let's just produce the same amount of stuff in 10x less time.

Sure the consumer won't consume 10x more, but they're still going to reach for the better products.

And let's say that work is correlated with quality. Company A wants to spend 10x less time working, while Company B works 10x more. Company B therefore has a better product than Company A, so eventually Company A goes away. The consumer still consumed the same amount, but they switched to the better product.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#72

Post by armada651 »

cattown wrote: post #33

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…

When your labor force makes gains in productivity you can choose to do one of two things:

1. Reduce working hours 2. Grow the economy

Guess which option was last picked in 1868 and never again despite massive gains in productivity?

Re: Can we have the day off?

#73

Post by jfengel »

irjustin wrote: post #38
tantalor wrote: post #6

Star Trek post-scarcity economy when?? https://rickwebb.medium.com/the-economics-of-star-trek-29bab...

What Star Trek doesn't show is how they got there. I promise you it's going to be extremely painful, but once we're on the other side it'll be worth it. I argue - there's nothing we can do to stop it; humanity, I mean. We will either achieve Star Trek or get wiped out as a species. As a Kardashev Type 3, we will have achieved full automation. I'll leave the door open for Elysium problems, but hopefully Mr. Damon will…

Star Trek predicted riots around now because of vast numbers of unemployed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_Tense_(Star_Trek:_Deep_Sp...

A couple of years ago, in fact. We're running late.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#75

Post by p-e-w »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #55
p-e-w wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hasn’t been true for decades in the West, even though per-capita productivity has been steadily rising since WW2.

Are you sure? From the data I’ve seen the bottom decile Americans consume significantly more per capita compared to even 2006. e.g. plane travel was completely absent amongst the bottom decile in 2006, like so close to zero mileage per capita per annum it was a rounding error.

Plane travel is a very poor proxy for quality of life.

Home ownership, high-quality food, working hours etc. seem far more relevant.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#76

Post by ranyume »

madrox wrote: post #65

The four day work week is a prisoner's dilemma. If everyone did it, then we'd all get a payoff, but if someone defects to a longer work week they tend to get ahead at work. Thus we all do it and thus we all lose. It's funny how underappreciated it is how the five day work week is powered by norms...at least in the US. People assume there are laws about it. The only laws dictate compensation past certain thresholds, a…

What do you mean? You just need to ban companies from doing 5 days work.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#77

Post by refactor_master »

cmuguythrow wrote: post #39

Relevant: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ 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…

If anything, China proves that 996 is not sustainable as it simply leads to involution and attrition. At best the populace benefits in a few hyper-focused industries such as take-out and e-commerce, but average life quality is still far behind "lazy countries".

Re: Can we have the day off?

#78

Post by kbar13 »

Cakez0r wrote: post #68
cattown wrote: post #33

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…

The reality is that most people are paid for their time, not for their output. I think most contracts for salaried employees are along the lines of "work n hours a week". If you want to get paid for output, you can't be a salaried employee.

is this not backwards? salaried employee means you get paid the same amount no matter how many hours you work.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#80

Post by Aurornis »

terminalgravity wrote: post #56

Benefits for extra productivity filter up to the shareholders not to the workers producing the extra productivity. This reminds me of the Luddite movement in England. Industrial machines were disrupting the textile industry. The Luddites were not anti technology they were against technology allowing employers to suppress wages and working conditions and for increasing the quality of life and more humane working condi…

> The Luddites were not anti technology they were against technology allowing employers to suppress wages and working conditions and for increasing the quality of life and more humane working conditions for the extra productivity.

I’m seeing this talking point circulated a lot recently but it’s not really the whole story. Luddites weren’t on a selfless crusade to steal from the rich and give to the poor. They wanted to fight off competition for their specific jobs. They didn’t want anyone having access to cheaper fabrics and clothes and other things because that was their golden goose. They wanted to be in control and force you to go through the inefficient methods to get those things because it benefited themselves.

A closer modern day analog would be something like the dock workers striking to keep automation out of ports. They have a sweet gig and they don’t want machines doing anything to jeopardize their stranglehold on ports, even if it would benefit literally everyone else in the entire country if we could modernize our ports like the rest of the world.

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