Can you imagine a superlargo weekend? Since human beings will no longer be necessary for many things, or rather, they will be replaced in many tasks, our work week could shorten only two days of every seven. When? Within a decade, more or less.
Says nothing less than Bill GatesMicrosoft co -founder, gigafilántropo with planetary and visionary concerns. In his 1999 book entitled Business at The Speed of Thought (businesses at the speed of thought), predicted the arrival or evolution of services or gadgets such as (without any particular order) Alexa Virtual Assistantsthe smartphonesthe directed advertising and the Online finance. In summary, it is worth listening to old William when he decides to extend.
What will the work of the future be (according to Bill Gates)
“What will work be like? Maybe we can only work two or three days a week?“Gates asked this rhetorical question during an episode of The Tonight Show of NBC. It was not the first time: a couple of years ago, in the first cheatgpt rales, the billionaire had drawn a similar scenario. That, that is, in which to work little will be the norm and, in essence, most of the planet will have to worry (never) of What to do with all that free time to which few are accustomed. The many gurus who speak precisely of time as the main wealth of our era will lack the ground under their feet, if that is effectively the direction in which societies will go (at least the most tertiary and digitally and technologically developed).
Letters from Kyrguistan
The panorama imagined by Gates remembers a small book published more than twenty years ago and signed by the director, poet and philosopher Silvano Agosti, entitled Letters from Kyrguistan. Through ten missives sent to his friends, Agosti speaks of an imaginary society on a human scale, “Where each one seems to manage their own destiny, and Permanent serenity is not a utopia, but a real and common good. “
In Kyrguistan, the problem of work, the main responsible for the speech of human beings organized by the turocapitalist system, has been resolved reducing to three the number of hours a day. Agosti bet, then, for a horizontal part time, while Gates would apparently opt for a vertical one; In any case, the remaining twenty -one of the day would devote each one to what he liked the most: from the rest to creativity through children, life, love. And then the house, the books, the cars, the trips … Obviously, there are no productivity problems in Kyrguistan, which, on the contrary, works wonderfully thanks to the fact that everyone is happy to work and produces both in one hour and in a day in the old regime.
It won’t be for everyone
However, when leaving Kyrgyzstan and returning to reality, we cannot avoid realizing that Gates’s is not a statement, but really speculation. Also, in some aspects, it is a reality that we are already experiencing in our skin: in some cases with some advantages, in others with a load of fears.
According to Microsoft’s dad, for example, doctors and teachers will be the first to disappear. Artificial intelligence agents will take care of us or give private classes: and who knows if the fees and registrations will cost much less.
Humans, Gates seems to say, we will have almost scenic jobslike being a professional baseball player, because, of course, no one likes to see a baseball game played by robots or computers: “There will be some things that we will book for us; but in terms of producing, moving and growing food, over time they will be basically solved problems. And with them, all the operators and workers who take care of them.
Happy not to work anymore?
The problems of these speeches They are the two usual. The first is the necessarily enthusiastic narrative. Why should we be so happy not to work anymore? Or rather: what kind of worker should be happy and which not so much? What would mean for human and individual growth? What will we study and how will we mark our vital trajectory, what will motivate us? Not to mention that it is a scenario that, we know very well, will be reserved for a few and turbulent rich economies.
The second point is that those who propose these models never address the issue of (re) distribution of wealth, which is the real problem not of the future, but today. In society with very little work, what will be the sources of income? Will Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Bill Gates support us? Work is an instrument of emancipation and autonomy. In recent years, work is often poorly and psychologically frustrating: but are tasks itself, or its economic management and treatment?
Article originally published in Wired Italy. Adapted by Mauricio Serfatty Godoy.
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