Facepalm: Should workers be allowed more time off because of AI increasing their productivity? It's a contentious issue, but we shouldn't be surprised to learn Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth's view. He thinks employees should use their freed-up time to do even more work. He also got quite salty when an employee asked about bringing back Meta's canceled holiday program, calling the question "very dumb."
Bosworth gave his Victorian workhouse-style opinion on what employees should do with their free time from AI-related productivity gains at a July Q&A, reports Business Insider.
One employee asked if skyrocketing productivity meant Meta could revive Meta Days, a canceled holiday program that allowed workers a few extra days off.
Bosworth's reply was the kind one would expect from a tech executive. "Stop asking about Meta Days. It's very dumb," he said, appearing to show some restraint by not having the person flogged and fired on the spot for their impudence.
Bosworth then gave his suggestion for what Meta's workers should be doing with their free time, other than worrying they'll join the thousands of others the company has laid off recently.
"I hope that what we do with our extra time is do even more and cooler stuff for the users who use our products every day," the exec said, according to three people on the call.
Bosworth then seemed to adopt a lead-by-example stance. "I get an extra hour. You know what I do with it? I put it into that."
Seemingly frothing at the mouth at this point, Bosworth doubled down and asked employees what their parents would think of them for daring to ask for more time off from a company that, at one point, was spying on its employees to train the AI that could replace them.
"Go to your parents and ask them: Hey, like every time I get a chance to talk to my boss, ask me if I can have more days off. Ask your parents what they think of that as a career strategy," he asked, possibly expecting everyone to hang their heads in shame.
This is likely the point that Bosworth realized the optics of asking if workers' parents would be ashamed of them for requesting more time off, even if AI has enabled it. He apologized for coming down "too hard" on the employee, before adding that he felt the question was "tongue-in-cheek," which sounds like the real-world equivalent of adding "jk" at the end of an insulting online message.
Meta, of course, has cut 10,000 to 11,000 jobs across the last 12 months, while its AI-driven capital spending over the previous four quarters has reached $92.43 billion, all of which suggest that employees having more time off is pretty low on its priority list.
As with curing cancer, we're still waiting for AI to increase productivity to the point where we all work four-hour days. OpenAI boss Sam Altman recently said this will never happen because we all love working so much.
Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience last year, Senator Bernie Sanders said that the extra time that workers save through the use of AI tools should be given back to them – not filled with extra tasks. It seems Bosworth does not share the same view.
