Sam Altman reveals why AI hasn't led to 4-hour working week yet despite hopes it would slash workload

The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, has revealed why artificial intelligence has not yet led to a four hour working week, despite hopes that it would ultimately slash workload for humans.

While many fear that the tech could one day take their jobs, some are hopeful that AI might at least lessen the workload in a lot of industries.

However, despite rumors that the advancement of the technology could lead to people working less, Altman has burst the bubble by explaining why this hasn’t happened yet.

The mogul appeared on an episode of the Relentless podcast hosted by Ti Morse where he discussed the prospect of shorter work weeks.

During the chat, Altman said: “Technology, for a long time, has been promising people that they’re going to work less and they’re going to have all this leisure and it has gone in that direction, I think people do have more time for leisure than they had at many previous points in history and a higher quality of life in many ways but somehow we never get the promise of the four-hour workweek at mass scale in society, and I don’t expect AI to change that.

“Clearly, society is not working for a lot of people, and more productivity gains that actually accrue to people would be a great thing. And I suspect they will. I suspect that will happen.”

According to Altman, with the assistance of AI, productivity will increase but that will simply lead to a rise in demand.

He continued: “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.”

Altman seems to believe that humanity it simply too competitive to change our habits to a four-hour work-week. Put simply, we'll just always make more work for ourselves.

This has prompted many people to react to the news on social media, with one user writing on X, formerly Twitter: “If AI won't even deliver 4 hour workdays then please cancel the whole s*** show. But somehow I can't imagine that not being achieved if AI literally becomes better at every task a human can do.”

Another said: “All additional value generated by the workers will be siphoned directly to the owner class as is tradition.”

A third person commented: “more productivity gains will mean more expectations, not less work.”

And a fourth added: “It seems like we still will be working for a while. Just progress will be increased by AI.”