06/05/2025

Our Jobs and AI

How the four-day week could anchor our work-lives

So, what do economists have to say about how artificial intelligence (AI) will affect working hours? The simple answer to this question may be "not much." One reason is that in the post–World War II period, work time became something of a stepchild in the profession.

At the end of the first seminar I gave on working hours back in the 1980s, at MIT, a senior economist suggested I give up the topic; he was puzzled that I was interested in hours, because all that really matters is income. Needless to say, I didn't take his advice. But his view wasn't atypical. Employment, wages, incomes, the income distribution — those are better things to study. The profession wasn't always like this.

Historically, many influential economists wrote about hours of work and how technology would affect them. Marx chronicled long hours in the "Satanic mills" of the Industrial Revolution. Keynes predicted increasing leisure over the twentieth century. That said, there is a robust literature on technology and, increasingly, on AI.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Big Think.