Sam Altman Says AI Won't Shorten the Workweek — Because People Enjoy Being Busy

TechSpot reports that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is pushing back against the idea that AI will meaningfully reduce working hours. Altman's argument: the technology can handle more of the workload, but humans inherently enjoy staying busy and will simply find new tasks to fill any time that automation frees up.

The reasoning describes a best-case scenario for workers who have the autonomy to create their own tasks — essentially knowledge workers at the top of the skills distribution. It doesn't address what happens when automation displaces workers in roles where that kind of task-creation isn't available, such as customer service or content production.

Altman is describing a voluntary relationship with work from the perspective of a founder who enjoys his job. Whether that generalizes to the broader workforce — across sectors, income levels, and job types — is a question the argument doesn't attempt to answer.

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