And 20% who have value will work 12 hour weeks, primarily to ensure the machines are running properly.
Jack Ma isn't wrong here. He's entirely correct. Men used to work sunup to sundown seven days a week. Shortened work weeks are the future and part of a trend that has been occurring in Western society since the industrial revolution. There's no reason to think this trend will reverse.
The question is what to do with the 80% who have nothing to contribute except violence, poverty, ignorance, superstition, and babies.
Typically that is when someone starts a war to absorb the excess population.
“The question is what to do with the 80% who have nothing to contribute...”
They’ll be given jobs in the Domestic Social Justice Force to make sure everyone complies with the current groupthink and anyone who strays gets re-educated.
I am more concerned by AI enabling oppression by algorithm TODAY, whether Sesame Credit in China or the American equivalent Big Tech is trying to set up.
Having more leisure time is great but only if you fill that leisure time with worthwhile activities. Read some books. Learn a foreign language. Discover a new genre of music. Develop a skill or a trade. Explore the woods near your house. Go travelling to new places. Get some hobbies!
Speaking for myself, I have seen enormous changes in my industry over the past 30+ years. I remember having hanging files of clients and employees in my file cabinets and spending hours upon hours making out vacation schedules, scheduling quarterly account reviews, organizing sales and service manuals, brochures, etc., etc. Many other examples of work that used to involve putting pen to paper and sifting through file cabinets looking for a copy of that service contract or purchase order. Then there was opening and responding to mail. Not email but postal mail. A good hour or two per day just doing that!
All of that tedious work is now gone forever. Now done by apps and software programs.
I definitely see a 12 hour week becoming reality someday. Most jobs, people will be maintaining and programming robots or computers to do the bulk of the work. A century ago, people scoffed at a 40 hour week. It used to be normal to work 10-12 hours a day including Saturday. Sunday was really the only day off most working people had.
Here's a specific example of what I'm talking about here. Back in the 1990s, I ran a department of printer technicians. 20+ people who spent the entire day going around loading and configuring printer drivers, troubleshooting issues, adding ink, clearing paper jams, dealing with operator error issues. All that is gone. You buy a printer off the shelf these days, take it home, and it pretty much sets itself up when you plug it in. Then it works for 2-3 years until it needs ink or something and people just dump it in the trash and buy a new one.