JPMorgan CEO says our children will only work 3.5 days a week thanks to AI(businessinsider.com)
businessinsider.com
JPMorgan CEO says our children will only work 3.5 days a week thanks to AI
https://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimon-ai-day-shorter-work-week-2023-10
54 comments
The number of days we work has nearly nothing to do with the technology available to us and everything to do with the relative power between labour and capital.
Exactly, landlords will be working 0.5 days and renters will be working 5-6 days. So I guess they were actually right if they meant 3.5 days on average.
I rent a very basic one bedroom in an awful location which costs more than half my after tax salary, and a round trip to my office in Toronto takes 3 hours and $45 of public transit. The price of this unit has also increased by more than my salary every year for the past 3 years.
I rent a very basic one bedroom in an awful location which costs more than half my after tax salary, and a round trip to my office in Toronto takes 3 hours and $45 of public transit. The price of this unit has also increased by more than my salary every year for the past 3 years.
I've met multiple people this week who recently relocated from Toronto. Rent is expensive everywhere, but it seems like TO is especially bad
Yep, relevant discussion if you haven't seen it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37446790
Here's hoping I get to be one of those people who can relocate from Toronto next.
Here's hoping I get to be one of those people who can relocate from Toronto next.
If this were true, rich people (ie, those with capital) would stop working. In most cases they don't.
Keeping up with the joneses is a big driver of long work weeks. Globalization also drives it. Scale drives it. Boredom drives it. It's complicated.
Keeping up with the joneses is a big driver of long work weeks. Globalization also drives it. Scale drives it. Boredom drives it. It's complicated.
If you're rich and still working long hours you're not working because of the money. If you can be the CEO of multiple companies, those companies are not getting a full-time workweek and that person very likely isn't doing it for the money.
Historia Civilis made a pretty good video on the nature of hours worked since time immemorial[0].
The takeaway message is: yes, the capital class are and have always been the main drivers of longer hours.
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37737663
The takeaway message is: yes, the capital class are and have always been the main drivers of longer hours.
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37737663
I don’t think this is true at all. It’s not luxuries that are getting more and more expensive, it’s the basics.
If you chose to live like someone 100 years ago, you could probably get away with working 3.5 hours/week, or fewer.
But if you want to live like someone from 30 years ago, you would need to work 100 hours/week. I don't think I'll ever be able to afford a home even half as good as the one I grew up in (in Canada).
If I'm a farmer, doctor, teacher, soldier, construction laborer, nurse, miner, or other actual work worker, I should realize this ain't my kids he's talking about.
Farmers use a lot of technology. So if he is talking "AI" think like combines keeping the "lane" like your car and tractors sowing basically on their own adjusting seed and fertilizer levels as needed as they go. And none of that needs actual "AI". Of course we are talking large industrial farm companies here in many cases. Not your mom and pop farm.
I don't see the farmer getting down to 3.5 hours a week, even for the row crop megafarms you're describing. Firing some hands, yes.
But you're good to highlight that there's some useful high tech out there on the fields.
But you're good to highlight that there's some useful high tech out there on the fields.
I think that's the point JPMorgan (and others in various replies) are making. The rich mega farmer is going to use "AI" (whatever that actually means) to replace some things that are done by these "children" today.
On some spreadsheet they are working 3.5 days. Across the entire population. If that actually happens to real American children across the board in corporate America, I will be impressed and proclaim the opposite of everything I say. What I think will actually happen is what you are saying. Fire some manual labor that today is still actually needed and getting paid. Many if not most of those are already not American workers but temporary or outright illegal foreign workers anyway. Not all of it being because "rich people are bad" but also because "poor people are not poor enough" (so to speak - I know this is "political suicide"). What our 1950s ancestors called hard but fair and honorable sweat labor is unthinkable to many of us today and we gladly let it be done by said half illegal labor and we turn the other way and binge watch another Netflix show while complaining that we can't find any good jobs!
On some spreadsheet they are working 3.5 days. Across the entire population. If that actually happens to real American children across the board in corporate America, I will be impressed and proclaim the opposite of everything I say. What I think will actually happen is what you are saying. Fire some manual labor that today is still actually needed and getting paid. Many if not most of those are already not American workers but temporary or outright illegal foreign workers anyway. Not all of it being because "rich people are bad" but also because "poor people are not poor enough" (so to speak - I know this is "political suicide"). What our 1950s ancestors called hard but fair and honorable sweat labor is unthinkable to many of us today and we gladly let it be done by said half illegal labor and we turn the other way and binge watch another Netflix show while complaining that we can't find any good jobs!
Farmers and soldiers use a lot more technology than most of us. Farming is an industry that uses much more technology earlier than other Industries. It is harder to enter but easier to stay, and once there, it lasts for a long time.
Sure, but show me the soldier who only works a 4-hour week.
They're talking about the immigrants kids who are replacing you.
I mean, if you're white and American, your family immigrated to America... I don't get why you folk are so obsessed with immigration.
It's about a conflict of mutually opposed interests.
You and I exist as citizens of our respective nations. We have wants and needs, and we engage with politics (hopefully by voting) to pursue those wants and needs.
So long as we are part of the majority, it is likely our wants and needs will be more or less met.
When we are no longer in the majority, our needs and wants are less likely to be met.
When politicians import (or allow to be imported) a new demographic into the voter base, who bring with them new collections of wants and needs, that activity harms our bargaining position as politicians are no longer beholden to our interests.
In America, in an era where special treatment and incentives and punishments are being awarded on the basis of ethnicity(which cannot be changed or altered), this maters even more.
We exist in a zero-sum system of relative power.
You and I exist as citizens of our respective nations. We have wants and needs, and we engage with politics (hopefully by voting) to pursue those wants and needs.
So long as we are part of the majority, it is likely our wants and needs will be more or less met.
When we are no longer in the majority, our needs and wants are less likely to be met.
When politicians import (or allow to be imported) a new demographic into the voter base, who bring with them new collections of wants and needs, that activity harms our bargaining position as politicians are no longer beholden to our interests.
In America, in an era where special treatment and incentives and punishments are being awarded on the basis of ethnicity(which cannot be changed or altered), this maters even more.
We exist in a zero-sum system of relative power.
>When politicians import (or allow to be imported) a new demographic into the voter base, who bring with them new collections of wants and needs, that activity harms our bargaining position as politicians are no longer beholden to our interests.
Do you have a source for this?
Is immigration actually meaningfully impacting party demographics?
Do you have a source for this?
Is immigration actually meaningfully impacting party demographics?
>Is immigration actually meaningfully impacting party demographics?
Yes. I will edit in a few examples from several countries in a moment.
It's worth noting, however, that interest displacement/dilution is still an issue even if it doesn't force/induce party clustering. Individual parties shifting policy priorities/implementations/strategies to cater to new voter bases to win power results in a relative deprioritization of citizens.
The fundamental dynamics at play still apply.
If the largest demo in a nation only occupied, say, 40% of it's voter base, a coalition of the other demos can override them and (if the competition is polarized enough) will eventually realize the dominant strategy is to actively reduce that groups numbers and power to secure the position of the coalition and the individual power of each of it's members.
Its entry level conflict theory in practice.
Edit: Sources.
Overall trends in party affiliation(USA): https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/10/26/what-the-...
Immigration trends in party loyalty (USA): https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-stu...
Trends in immigration settlement patterns: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-findi...
Trends in voting patterns by settlement region: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-...
The takeaway here is that immigration flows to areas with shared want/need profiles and elevate the national power of those demand slates, displacing power from alternative slates. Whether this good or not depends on if the demands of immigrants overlap with your own demands. If they do, you are empowered. If they do not, you are disempowered.
Yes. I will edit in a few examples from several countries in a moment.
It's worth noting, however, that interest displacement/dilution is still an issue even if it doesn't force/induce party clustering. Individual parties shifting policy priorities/implementations/strategies to cater to new voter bases to win power results in a relative deprioritization of citizens.
The fundamental dynamics at play still apply.
If the largest demo in a nation only occupied, say, 40% of it's voter base, a coalition of the other demos can override them and (if the competition is polarized enough) will eventually realize the dominant strategy is to actively reduce that groups numbers and power to secure the position of the coalition and the individual power of each of it's members.
Its entry level conflict theory in practice.
Edit: Sources.
Overall trends in party affiliation(USA): https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/10/26/what-the-...
Immigration trends in party loyalty (USA): https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-stu...
Trends in immigration settlement patterns: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-findi...
Trends in voting patterns by settlement region: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-...
The takeaway here is that immigration flows to areas with shared want/need profiles and elevate the national power of those demand slates, displacing power from alternative slates. Whether this good or not depends on if the demands of immigrants overlap with your own demands. If they do, you are empowered. If they do not, you are disempowered.
I'll wait for your sources.
I've added the USA ones as I had some time between clients. I have some Canadian ones and if memory serves a UK one as well.
I will add them shortly.
I will add them shortly.
I'm convinced all this "great replacement" stuff is a weird sexual thing. It's gotta be a fetish or something.
I mean, people are certainly being replaced.
Maybe they don't want to be?
The conspiracy elements of it are entirely unnecessary.
Maybe they don't want to be?
The conspiracy elements of it are entirely unnecessary.
No they won't. We'll work 5 days a week for less money and the rich will get richer.
I don't know why this is getting downvoted. This is exactly how the system works.
Every productivity gain is only meant to make workers faster which earns profits faster for the executives and shareholders.
With the prospect of faster work, execs and shareholders are salivating at the thought of grinding workers more in the same 40 hours/week but earn more profits for the same amount of hours.
If we want our children to live a better life than us, we need massive changes in laws (healthcare, exempt workers etc.).
Every productivity gain is only meant to make workers faster which earns profits faster for the executives and shareholders.
With the prospect of faster work, execs and shareholders are salivating at the thought of grinding workers more in the same 40 hours/week but earn more profits for the same amount of hours.
If we want our children to live a better life than us, we need massive changes in laws (healthcare, exempt workers etc.).
You speak as if execs are some depersonalized force of nature. But they are people and there aren't that many of them. JPMorgan CEO is one of them, and he seems to be saying he supports a shorter work week, but not a complete abolishment of work as some thinkers have proposed. If he says those are his views, do you have an argument for why we shouldn't take his word for it?
He's not going to accept a 3.5 hour workweek for JP Morgan and neither will his successor. Owners and managers will always squeeze hard. It's the nature of competition and he knows it.
Execs are people. They are not uniformly the same.
JPMorgan's billionaire CEO does not speak for the many decamillionaire CEOs who want to get into the billionaire club.
JPMorgan's billionaire CEO does not speak for the many decamillionaire CEOs who want to get into the billionaire club.
We were thought to work three days a week because of all the productivity gains we made. The time we'd be down to three days? The 1970s. Wealth always demands more wealth and the rest of us need to be good labor-piggies and do that work. Yeah, they can get away with doing more with less because AI but they'll keep on with the skeleton crew they can and carry on. Rinse repeat capitalism.
His children won't need to work. He's not looking at the rest of us.
Unless people vote otherwise!
That's how we got the work week down to 40 hours.
There's a bill in California to decrease it down to 32 hours.
We could already be at 28 hours if we voted for it, theoretically.
That's how we got the work week down to 40 hours.
There's a bill in California to decrease it down to 32 hours.
We could already be at 28 hours if we voted for it, theoretically.
How can the rich get richer than they already are? Don’t the bottom half already have only like 1% of the wealth?
Everything that grows the pie makes the richer even more rich. Given the unequal capture of economic growth, anything that makes the poor 1% better off will make the rich 50% better off (more money to influence governments, more toys, better health care, faster jets, nicer food, etc.). Feels like a disincentive to make anything better.
The bottom half could easily have 0.1% of the wealth in 20 years.
Heard it all before.
I've also heard that increased productivity is eventually captured by the financial sector through increased debt servicing costs as it extends more credit to match the increased productivity. That one I'm prepared to believe.
Whatever the case, I highly doubt we'll see increased productivity resulting in more leisure time without a political revolution.
I've also heard that increased productivity is eventually captured by the financial sector through increased debt servicing costs as it extends more credit to match the increased productivity. That one I'm prepared to believe.
Whatever the case, I highly doubt we'll see increased productivity resulting in more leisure time without a political revolution.
I know Keynes said something of the sort, did the 18th and 19th century industrialists also say this stuff?
It happened just not in the way we anticipated.
Women went from carrying washboards to the rivers edge to walking downstairs and dropping a load into the washing machine. Root cellars became ice boxes became refrigerators. Instead of beating the rugs you run a vacuum, etc.
Women could've hung out at home with this newfound time, but instead they mostly went into the workplace. This roughly doubled the labor force and over time essentially halved wages workers took home, making dual income households the norm and now essentially a requirement to own property.
Women went from carrying washboards to the rivers edge to walking downstairs and dropping a load into the washing machine. Root cellars became ice boxes became refrigerators. Instead of beating the rugs you run a vacuum, etc.
Women could've hung out at home with this newfound time, but instead they mostly went into the workplace. This roughly doubled the labor force and over time essentially halved wages workers took home, making dual income households the norm and now essentially a requirement to own property.
I'll be honest, I never liked this argument.
First, it didn't happen then, specially if wages being halved meaning that there isn't even a theoretical possibility of working half the hours for the same pay.
And why does doubling labour force halve wages? Land is limited so the higher competition can mean more workers mean higher prices, sure. But for everything else, productivity of workers per hour increased. This isn't the middle ages where demand for labour is more or less limited by the availability of agricultural land. Why can't the new and old workers capture the same share of the pie they produce as before women joined the wage labour force?
First, it didn't happen then, specially if wages being halved meaning that there isn't even a theoretical possibility of working half the hours for the same pay.
And why does doubling labour force halve wages? Land is limited so the higher competition can mean more workers mean higher prices, sure. But for everything else, productivity of workers per hour increased. This isn't the middle ages where demand for labour is more or less limited by the availability of agricultural land. Why can't the new and old workers capture the same share of the pie they produce as before women joined the wage labour force?
If doubling the labor force halved wages why would productivity increases have a different effect?
But not at JPMorgan where they need butts in office seats 5 days a week!
> What can we reasonably expect the level of our economic life to be a hundred years hence? What are the economic possibilities for our grandchildren?
> ... for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem-how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.
> The strenuous purposeful money-makers may carry all of us along with them into the lap of economic abundance. But it will be those peoples, who can keep alive, and cultivate into a fuller perfection, the art of life itself and do not sell themselves for the means of life, who will be able to enjoy the abundance when it comes.
> ... We shall do more things for ourselves than is usual with the rich to-day, only too glad to have small duties and tasks and routines. But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while.
"Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren", Keynes, 1930
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Didn't exactly end up that way.
> ... for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem-how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.
> The strenuous purposeful money-makers may carry all of us along with them into the lap of economic abundance. But it will be those peoples, who can keep alive, and cultivate into a fuller perfection, the art of life itself and do not sell themselves for the means of life, who will be able to enjoy the abundance when it comes.
> ... We shall do more things for ourselves than is usual with the rich to-day, only too glad to have small duties and tasks and routines. But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while.
"Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren", Keynes, 1930
-----
Didn't exactly end up that way.
Well, Keynes got kicked by the rich who set up a different scheme to capture all the gains for themselves.
* yet
However I would note actually many people have chosen to do exactly this and our abundance sustains them sufficiently. But the enshitification of literally reality itself makes it impossible for most people to see beyond the human hamster wheels we’ve built for ourselves.
However I would note actually many people have chosen to do exactly this and our abundance sustains them sufficiently. But the enshitification of literally reality itself makes it impossible for most people to see beyond the human hamster wheels we’ve built for ourselves.
The core principles of capitalism, revolving around productivity, cost reduction and profit maximization, mandates that the future with AI assisted work, if at all that comes to fruition, means that capitalists will hire half the workforce to make them work 5 or 6 days a week (or find countries which have situations that allow this to be the norm) and extract more profit from each soul, rather than keeping the same workforce and allowing each of them to work 3.5 days a week.
Ai will be owned by the richest people in the world. Maybe their children will only work 3.5 days a week. Unless we can solve that problem everyone else will get screwed.
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>our children will only work 3.5 days a week thanks to AI
And they'll work the remaining 3.5 days no thanks to AI at all.
And they'll work the remaining 3.5 days no thanks to AI at all.
With a commensurate decrease in compensation.
Arbitrary number predicted at a timeframe far enough out that he’ll have retired by the time it gets proven/disproven
Yeah their children...and we thought ours.