In Praise of Idleness (1932)

If the story of AI productivity is true, why are we not seeing the same pay, for fewer hours, with the same output?

Edit: see this quote for context. Wow.

> This is the morality of the Slave State, applied in circumstances totally unlike those in which it arose. No wonder the result has been disastrous. Let us take an illustration. Suppose that at a given moment a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins as before. But the world does not need twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world everybody concerned in the manufacture of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?

1) workers are paid by the hour. If you only work them 4 hrs they make half as much. Their expenses don't decrease, they're pissed.

You could double their hourly wage so all gains from this efficiency go to labor. Wonderful! But then this leads to issue 2

2) a less altruistic competitor will copy your efficiency gain, and instead of distributing to labor with 2x wages, they'll cut the price since each pin costs less. Now customers will buy their pins, not yours. You go belly up and your leisure workers go from 4 hrs a day to 0.

3) let's say all companies are altruistic. Awesome everyone's making 2x per hour and working half as less. Let's say everyone takes up painting. Utopia! But then some workers decide instead of painting they get a second job. Now they're making more and have edge on critical resourcing like housing. The painting ones notice and say "hey! I can't afford a house anymore" and go take up a second job as well. Then we are back to where we started, working 40 hr weeks, just everything is 2x as expensive.

I don't know the solutions, i just think it's worth thinking thru real world implications of proposals outlined here. Its like a giant prisoner's dilemma - it only really seems to work if everyone cooperates and doesn't defect