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The effect of AI on jobs and employment worldwide is one of the biggest considerations for many as the technology continues to rapidly evolve, yet some of the planet's biggest tech executives have all managed to agree on one (mostly) positive consequence that the dramatic change will bring about.
You'd be right to be afraid of the ever-increasing capabilities of artificial intelligence and how that affects your job, as many experts have predicted that as time goes on, only a handful of roles will survive.
Naturally there are some types of employment that don't necessarily make sense for AI to 'eliminate' — take sports for example, as there's not that many people who would rather watch robots or computers kick a football around compared to good old humans.
However, significant roles in almost every other sector will have at least part – if not all – of their responsibilities usurped by AI, especially as we edge closer and closer to achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), which marks the point that technology is as smart as humans.
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There is one key positive, at least in the short term, to take from this though, as three of the tech world's most important executives have managed to agree on a major consequence that will emerge from the potential of AI.
As reported by Fortune, names including Bill Gates, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan have all agreed that advancements in AI will lead to a shorter working week, potentially reaching as little as three days for many.
Of course, this depends entirely on whether your job hasn't already been made redundant by AI, but anyone lucky enough to still be in employment should see the hours they need to clock in for significantly reduce.
Speaking to the New York Times, Yuan asserted that "I feel like if AI can make all of our lives better, why do we need to work for five days a week? Every company will support three days, four days a week. I think this ultimately frees up everyone's time."
Zoom already played a leading role in one of the biggest work shakeups in decades when the COVID-19 pandemic forced most people into remote working scenarios, and it could be at the forefront of a shift that would see people working far less too.
This is similar to ideas laid out by one key scientist, as he outlined that even the extreme end of AI taking people's jobs would be beneficial for society as it would free people up to do what they want, providing that there was economical or living support, of course.
These ideas have also been echoed by Bill Gates, who on The Tonight Show told Jimmy Fallon that "if you zoom out, the purpose of life is not just to do jobs," asserting that a 'two or three day' work week is the way forward.
Jensen Huang did offer similar suggestions when it came to the reduced number of days that people are working, but he believes that it'll merely see the same workload crammed into a shorter time period, and that people will be "busier in the future than now."
