alt Hacker NewsMy expectation is that the social contract will change if most labor can be performed autonomously.
The question for me is whether only software engineering or white-collar work is affected, forcing us into different labor.
If instead most labor is affected, I am confident we will figure out a new social contract. Contrary to what some pessimists seem to believe, I very much doubt the evil elites are working towards a largely unemployed and poor population.
I could imagine that the norm will be two days of work per week, with five days off.
> My expectation is that the social contract will change if most labor can be performed autonomously.
Before the industrial revolution, 80-90% of society worked in the fields, in agriculture. It would have been a quite obvious prediction to say that once machines can do most of that work, people would just have a lot of free time and hardly work anymore. Look how that turned out.
I'd therefore be skeptical of predictions saying we'll all work less. 40 hours a week were a thing 100 years ago when productivity was much lower, and it has not changed since.