Commentary: AI alone cannot shorten the work week

PRODUCTIVITY DOES NOT CREATE MORE LEISURE

Perhaps the clearest evidence that higher productivity will not lead to more leisure is historical: In the past, it hasn’t.

Though productivity improved dramatically from 1900 to 2005, average leisure time in the US increased by less than one hour per day for younger and older workers, while declining slightly in the middle age bracket. Though real wages and living standards increased significantly, leisure time did not.

Of course, it is possible for people to experience high weekly levels of leisure. History provides many examples of leisure classes in pre-industrial societies, from the aristocrats of Han Dynasty China to the citizens of ancient Athens. These groups, while relying heavily on systems of forced labour for production, eschewed longer hours for scholarly and leisurely pursuits.

High amounts of leisure were possible primarily because members of these classes lacked incentives to work more. Norms and technological underdevelopment deterred them from pursuing the cycles of higher production, prices and consumption we observe in the US today.

A feudal lord could not meaningfully boost crop yields by working more hours managing the farm, nor could he invest surplus into capital-intensive machinery. When societies lack the incentives or means to reward more work and production, members collectively choose more leisure. It was not merely the presence of serfs and slaves alone that enabled leisure classes to arise in the past, but a lack of more productive work available to landholders.

Similarly, AI will not automatically enable more leisure time. Technologies do not halt the structural forces that keep working days long and prices high. Without radically different institutions or norms that prevent higher consumption and prices, such as enforced weekly work limits or highly progressive taxes, a shorter working week remains unlikely in the US.

If the AI evangelists believe in the shorter work week, they must also be committed to a future economy that looks very different from the one we have today. Higher levels of leisure could mean lower growth. Ultimately, it will be voters and policymakers, not tech barons, who will decide exactly what technology will augment – our possessions or our free time.