Work in an Automated World

In short: Automation and AI can produce more with less work. Whether that makes life better for most people depends on choices, not on the technology itself. We propose three steps that share the gains: a gradual shift to shorter working weeks, learning throughout life paid for as a right, and a share of the returns from automation paid to everyone through a common fund.

The Question

Enhanced Automation, Impact of Artificial Intelligence and Life After Automation describe how machines are taking over more and more tasks. This article asks: how can societies make sure the gains benefit everyone, and not only those who own the machines?

Key Ideas

• Productivity is not the problem. For two centuries, machines have made work more productive. Over time, that brought higher wages and shorter working weeks: from about 60 to 70 hours a week in the 1800s to under 40 in most rich countries today.
• But the gains are not shared automatically. Since around 1980, in many rich countries, productivity has grown faster than typical wages. A growing share of income goes to the owners of capital and to a small group of very high earners.
• AI may speed this up. If AI can do much of the work now done in offices, the gains could be very large, and so could the risk that they go to very few.

Our Proposal

1. Shorter working time, step by step. Let part of each productivity gain go to free time instead of only to output. Concretely: move towards a four-day week over about ten years, sector by sector, without loss of pay where productivity allows. Large trials, such as the 2022 UK pilot with over 60 companies, found that most firms kept the shorter week, with similar output and less burnout.

2. Learning throughout life, as a right. Give every adult a personal learning account, topped up each year, to use for training, retraining or a career change at any age. France already has such an account (the compte personnel de formation). Combine it with paid leave to study, so that people do not have to choose between learning and paying the rent.

3. A share of the returns for everyone. Let part of the returns from automation, AI and natural resources flow into a common fund owned by all residents, which pays everyone a yearly dividend. This builds on the fund proposed in From Inherited Wealth to a Fair Start, and on real examples such as Norway’s oil fund and the Alaska Permanent Fund, which has paid every resident a yearly dividend since 1982. Over time, the dividend can help pay for the Universal Allowance.

Objections

• “Shorter weeks will make us poorer.” Only if output falls. The proposal links working time to productivity gains, so it moves only as fast as the economy allows. Countries like Germany and the Netherlands already work fewer hours than most and remain among the richest.
• “Companies will move abroad.” The fund draws first on returns that cannot easily move, such as land, natural resources and the use of national data and infrastructure, as in From Inherited Wealth to a Fair Start. Acting as a group of countries reduces the risk further.
• “People need work for meaning, not just money.” Agreed. Shorter weeks keep work for more people instead of fewer people working long hours while others have none. And free time leaves room for care, community and learning, which give meaning too.

First Steps

1. Public sector and volunteer company trials of a four-day week, with independent evaluation.
2. A learning account for every adult, starting with workers in jobs most exposed to automation.
3. A small first contribution to the common fund from the returns on public data, land and natural resources.

The Human Side

Work gives people income, but also structure, colleagues and a sense of being useful. Losing a job to a machine can feel like losing a place in the world. A fair transition is one where people feel carried, not discarded. See Find your direction in the Personal Guide.

Open Questions

• How should the gains of AI be measured, and which share should go to the common fund?
• How can people in jobs that cannot easily shorten, like care and emergency services, benefit too?
• What happens to pensions and social security if paid working time falls?

Roadmap Step

This proposal supports step 4 of the Vision & Roadmap, “Guarantee a basic-needs budget”, by giving it a source of funding that grows as automation grows.

Where Next

• Previous: Inheritance
• Next: People Migration That Works
• Related: Universal Allowance, Life After Automation

Sources

• Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, Power and Progress (2023)
• OECD, Employment Outlook 2023: Artificial Intelligence and the Labour Market
• Autonomy and 4 Day Week Global, The Results Are In: The UK’s Four-Day Week Pilot (2023)
• Our World in Data, “Working Hours” (Charlie Giattino, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, Max Roser)
• Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation; Norges Bank Investment Management
• Service-public.fr, Compte personnel de formation (CPF)