What if the 4-day week was made possible by ChatGPT? For Christopher Pissarides, this is nothing like a science fiction scenario. During a conference, this economist demonstrated how AI could, in the future, push companies to reduce the workload of their employees. However, this transition will not be as easy as one might think.
In recent times, predictions regarding the impact of ChatGPT on the world of work are not not really happy. According to a Goldman Sachs study, nearly 300 million workers could eventually lose their jobs to conversational AI. OpenAI itself, the company behind the chatbot, is hardly more optimistic, estimating that only 34 trades in total will not be impacted.
Also, it is good to look on the side of those who see in ChatGPT hope for workers. Christopher Pissarides, professor at the London School of Economics and Nobel Prize winner in economics in 2010, is one of the latter. For him, the ultimate promise of ChatGPT is the time saving that the tool offers and, in fact, on increased productivity for companies.
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The 4-day week becomes possible thanks to ChatGPT
According to the economist, “we could easily switch to a four-day week” thanks to this gain in productivity, in addition “to increase our general well-being at work”. In particular, this would involve automation of certain tasks in order to let humans devote more time to their hobbies and tasks “interesting”. This transition, however, will not happen overnight or without a hitch.
First of all, Christopher Pissarides recognizes that AIs of the ChatGPT type represent a certain risk for the security of our societies, as several industry experts have already pointed out. “It will take time for the impact to be real and in that time people will adapt. What you need for this adaptation is essentially an increase in skills“, he analyzes. It remains to be determined who will benefit from this increase in competence.
Source : Bloomberg