Sam Altman says AI won't shorten the workweek because humans secretly enjoy being busy

Sam Altman says

Opinion discarded

I do enjoy working a lot

Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t prefer to work shorter weeks for companies that profit from me

Then I can spend more time on my own projects which is more rewarding

He's half right. I enjoy being busy, as long as I'm doing things I want when I want. What my employer wants me to do is rarely on the top of that list.

Yes Sam, we are yearning for the mines, and for billionaires to abuse us even more...

Billionaires secretly enjoy guillotines.

Yes... Doing things we enjoy rather than working.

Plantation owner assures us slaves enjoy the whip.

Why bother talking to guys like Sam? Why print what they say?

He isn't even an AI expert, his own employees have said so. He is just the adman.

Here's the thing, I do love being busy...

Playing with my kid

Cleaning the house

Painting minis

Work busy is so far down the list

Well yeah, i enjoy being busy. It's even kinda necessary for me due to ADHD, if i sit still with nothing to do for too long, days to weeks, early symptoms of depression start to slowly creep in which will get worse over time.

I'd just like to be busy with my interests and hobbies, not damned work. Even though I actually do like my work.

The tech bro billionaires have a bright future planned for humanity. When jobs disappear, they’re hoping we all start fighting and killing each other until disasters reduce the global Population. Meanwhile, they will be shacked up in their remote luxury resorts riding out events until there are a few million people left who can then work as their very own serfs

Busy with what

This mfer thinks we don't do shit outside of working hours wtf

Yeah dude, busy playing Metroid and going surfing, not busy completing four hours of unskippable corporate training for the third time this month

Fuck man, if AI made it so I didn't have to work 40 hours a week just to live, you know what I'd be doing?

I'd be keeping busy about as much time per week, sure. But I'd be doing shit I WANT TO DO instead of maximizing Shareholder Value™️. Reading, motorcycling, brewing, baking, hiking...

Living. Not just working.

Unfortunately for us all, LLMs won't do that and never were designed for it. Instead they're tools of Fascist oppression, and should be destroyed.

"Sam Altman says..."

Who fucking cares?

Weird, I thought I said Sam Altman could go fuck himself after the last awful thing he said, did nobody pass my message on?

It sure is convenient that the business owners are always reporting on their findings that support their business models!

Oh no! My secret love for labor! I sure hope no one tries to reduce my quality of life by reducing my hours/full paycheck!

I never feel more useless, isolated, and destroyed emotionally than when I am performing monotonous shitty tasks fixing fuckups that shouldn't have happened

and it just so happens that that seems to be the type of work that AI leaves behind for real people, so...

Scam Faultman

"We always want more. We think of new things to do, to create for each other, to want for ourselves. It's like a relative game. People are very focused on how they're doing relative to other people," the CEO said.

they had us in the first half. not gonna lie~

People billionaires are very focused on how they're doing relative to other people billionaires.

I enjoy teaching and, provided I was guaranteed my needs and reasonable comforts were provided, would continue to teach for free. I doubt Altman’s talking about passionate people pursuing their passions free from the threat of financial ruin.

Every time I think Altman has maxxed the “I am a complete fucking tool and a garbage human” metric, he manages to set the bar a little bit higher. It’s as impressive as it is obnoxious and aggravating.

Yes ... busy doing the stuff we want to do, not busy doing the stuff we have to do for a boss we hate!

Yeah, but like, being busy by doing things we enjoy doing

Why don't we just start with a mandatory 4 day work week and see how many people want to work on Friday.

The only people I know who are keen on going to work have been doing 40 hour weeks for decades. It's not enjoyment, it's indoctrination. Enjoying being busy is in no way equivalent to enjoying sitting in a office hearing Janet say "Someone has a case of the Mondays!".

last time I checked, Sam Altman was not an authority on humans

What's that? The essential promise of AI that people cared about (real people, not rich assholes) was a lie the whole time? I'm shocked! Shocked I say!

Megaloathe

I think this is true to an extent. It's why I don't give much Creedence to the "no one would work under communism" rhetoric.

That being said, there's a difference between keeping busy with hobbies and building stuff for myself or to eventually sell, and making my employer money.

Bro read about bullshit jobs and thought it sounds like winning formula

Sam!!! You promised you wouldn't tell anyone. Oh my gosh, I'm so embarassed everyone knows my secret now. 🤭

Fuck whatever Scam Crapman says

Sam Altman hasn't worked a day in his life and even that is a bit too much for him.

capitalists gonna capitalist. news at 10.

I hate being busy.

Yet more evidence I am not human.

This relates to the thing I am most confused by in today's business climate. Companies face brutal competition, and tremendous pressure to "innovate" (screw the customer more), and yet every ounce of research on the question suggests that rather than pushing people to work longer and longer hours, they can get the most out of their workforce by mandating proper sleep, time walking/in nature/exercise, non-continuous working periods, and comfort items like faster computers, better chairs, higher quality food, etc.

Why isn't any company ruthlessly pursuing efficiency by giving bonuses for sleeping well? It would be super creepy and authoritarian to mandate sleep monitoring, but I don't see why that stops them, when it doesn't appear to in any other direction. Or even simpler, requiring shorter working hours, but expecting the same/more output?

Is it this exact attitude, that somehow happy workers with free time will get up to no good, or become depressed, or feel less committed or something?

Sam Altman is talking out of his ass again. More news at ten

The "secret" is people want and will actively seek out passions, and having a job that you're passionate about is a night and day difference.

All you need to get people passionate is provide livable wage, have a supportive work culture, and give them a sense of purpose for their work.

Instead we've got shit pay, managers that will abuse your trust to get free work then dump you on a bad quarter, and all sense of choice and responsibility stripped in favor of getting you to follow a corporate script and be a good little corporate automaton that absorbs the customer's complaints while being powerless to fix their issue.

I mean honestly, no shit it won't shorten the work week, because no technological advancement has ever made us less busy. Only more. His reason is wrong and is just a bald faced lie to cover that he thinks it's a great way to milk out more blood from the stones these places are built on.

We will be working hard to build more data centers so computers can do creative jobs and manage us.

Fuck Sam Altman. He and the rest of the billionaires on the planet are a fucking cancerous tumor that needs to be removed.

Fuck you Sam. I hope a piano falls on you.

I publicly like to keep myself busy with non-work related activities.

I enjoy being productive. For the kind of work I do - if I'm "actively engaged" more than about 30 hours a week, I get less productive instead of more.

Balance in all things.

Read: His ilk will make most people work 60-72 hour work weeks, at lower pay. Some of them even want to reduce the human population, go figure.

I really wondering what the rich taste like.

Do all the spite and evilness will have an effect in the taste of their meat?

Sure, but I could use the extra time from not having to work as much to forage for berries and make tasty foods with them.

Oh yeah, I totally revel in my 40 hour work week and being stressed all the time...

Man's desperate to block out the howling void where human interaction should be

Yeah i enjoy working but for my project, not someone else bullshit

Of course being busy means doing a job

Something something revealed preference.

So..uhm. He can shut up. Yeah.

Well, not that secretly. A lot of people will straight up tell you. And being out of a job is a big stressor for the majority of jobless people, and not only because of the financial aspect. We do like being busy, having structure to our day, of which work is a part.

That doesn’t mean people don’t want to be overworked or feel like they’re a modern slave to the system where their only purpose is to make more money for their already rich boss.