Job Obsession: The Real Reason We Are not Ready for Artificial General Intelligence

Developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the main goal for most of the technology companies growing their artificial intelligence (AI) departments in 2025.  AGI is AI at a “human-like” level.  This means the AI would be able to learn new tasks at a level similar to human cognitive ability.  OpenAI, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are all working to produce AGI in hopes of generating an AI army of employees with abilities on par with human employees.

But a lot of the general workforce does not want this technology.  American employees already worry that AI will replace their usefulness in the workforce despite AI currently being well below the AGI threshold of competence.  Equipping AI with the intelligence and learning capabilities to match the average mid-level white-collar employee is likely to leave millions unemployed.  Even if we argue that specialized expertise will still be required, employees will not gain the necessary experience at low-level jobs to allow them to advance to the specialized positions that must be occupied by humans.  We are already seeing this with diminishing entry- level coding opportunities.  We cannot create upper-level coders without entry-level coding positions, leaving the industry vulnerable to a shortage of employees down the road if AI takes over more of the entry level of the industry.  Employees justifiably worry about their jobs in a world with AGI.  

Many also worry about the environmental impact of data centers that significantly diminish the water supply to cool servers.  As these data centers increase in number, additional environmental concerns include whether the heat generated by the data centers will rapidly increase global warming.  Without creative approaches that prioritize the environment over the costs of data centers, like Finland’s efforts to capture excess heat produced by data centers and use that heat to provide heating for people enduring Finland’s cold winters, the environmental impact of AI may secure the destruction of the world before we even reach AGI.

Even if we all start prioritizing maintaining the water supply and reducing heat waste from data centers like Finland, introducing AGI would tear apart American society.  Since the United States has the most data centers by far, it is likely that an American company will eventually develop the first AGI.  This will disproportionately impact American society, which is more reliant on jobs than other wealthy societies.

Because everything in the United States is tied to a job.

We Already Could Work Less

We already do not have to work 40 hours each week.  Labor unions fought to reduce work-hour expectations in the 1800s when some factories began expecting 16-hour days from their employees.  In 1926, Henry Ford instituted the 40-hour work week because he learned that productivity increased and accidents decreased when employee hours were limited to eight hours a day, five days a week.  (It is infuriating that so many of our companies have forgotten a lesson learned a full century ago!)  As a secondary perk, Ford appreciated the benefit of having well-rested employees with enough money to think about purchasing consumer goods—including his cars!

In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act standardized the 40-hour workweek for Americans, requiring employees to receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of that amount.  Obviously, today’s companies have found ways to work around this restriction, like suggesting salaried employees work more hours if they are interested in advancing their careers while reminding these employees that this extra time is not required.

We should be moving in the opposite direction.  Technological innovation over the last 87 years has increased the pace of work and output beyond levels imaginable in 1938.  But we still work 40 hours a week.  This is unnecessary.

Companies have prioritized maximizing profit over employee life enjoyment.  While Henry Ford was right that humans can work 40 hours each week and get adequate rest and recovery, employees can afford to work a lot less without compromising significant levels of productivity.  Productivity is sustained or improves when employers move from a five-day workweek to a four-day workweek.  Despite losing eight hours of work time, employees accomplish more in 32 hours than they did in 40 hours because they experience less burnout and strive to work more efficiently.

However, employees have fallen into the consumerism trap, continuing to work a 40-hour workweek so they can buy more stuff while their employer can continue to create stuff around the clock.  If we all agreed that a little less frivolous stuff was palatable and gave up the luxury of businesses always being open and available for our inquiry, we could all work fewer hours, increase leisure time, and maintain or slightly reduce output.  Instead, compounding consumerism keeps us locked into the always-working-and-always-buying lifestyle.

Why Don’t We Work Less?

If you want to work at all for someone else, it is difficult to opt out of the 40-hour workweek construct.  Compounding consumerism relies on the 40-hour workweek lifestyle.  Americans need to have jobs that keep them busy so they make purchases of convenience.  These purchases of convenience keep the economy going strong and keep those employees tied to their jobs so they can fund their next purchase of convenience.

The post-COVID-19 environment highlighted how reliant our economy is on keeping Americans operating like work drones commuting to an office, rushing to purchase a lunch near the office, stopping at an expensive gym because they cannot work out outside since the sun set before they left work, ordering takeout after a long and exhausting day, or ordering groceries to the house if they are more responsible than other American work drones.  Americans did not have to go back to the office because in-office work is more productive.  It is less productive.  Americans had to go back to offices because companies had already invested in expensive urban real estate to house their employees.  Property owners rented out ground-level spaces in the expensive building to Starbucks, Sweetgreen, CVS, and Solidcore, but those businesses would only stay and pay rent if stuck employees came back and relied on their services.  Jobs make Americans stressed for time, so they spend money for convenience.

To make matters worse, most American employees only get employer-sponsored health insurance if they work at least 30 hours a week.  I worked part-time for a couple months over the summer, and I had to pay half of what my employer usually paid for my health insurance.  My 20 hours each week was not enough to be worthy of health insurance in the American system.  Given that health insurance through the ACA Marketplace exchange costs a couple about $20,000 each year, a lot of people stay tied to full-time jobs to fund their health insurance.

Breaking apart from a society organized to keep employees tied to jobs and buying constantly to survive the stress of keeping those jobs, from commutes to optional-but-recommended overtime, is difficult.  We are doing it by leaving the workforce early and becoming entrepreneurs.  But American society prevents employees from working 10 hours or 20 hours each week and enjoying their lives in the space in between because this would slow down the compounding consumerist economy and require us to rethink the structure of systems like healthcare.

AGI Would Require Societal Restructure

The Soviet Union under Stalin removed standard workweeks and staggered work schedules to maximize output and reduce the opportunity for opposition gatherings because workers did not share a common leisure time.  While American society is not at that level, companies control the employment system to tie American employees to jobs and limit their ability to question the current structure of American employment.

A world with AGI would no longer allow companies to avoid the possibility of restructured society for Americans.  AGI would take over the jobs of average Americans, and society would be forced to adapt.  Stalin minimized free time to maintain control over Soviet workers, and Americans with endless free time and no money would pose a similar danger.  Rampant unemployment is a fast path to revolution, and that will hurt business, even for the company or companies profiting from AGI.  

The alternative is adjusting standard work hours across the board and splitting up remaining jobs among multiple people.  If 40 hours of work is required, we would need to split that workload among two,  three, or four people to give everyone the opportunity for employment.  Under this restructuring, companies would need to provide health insurance for employees working 10 or 20 hours each week rather than only those working 30 or more hours.

Alternatively, health care could be uncoupled with jobs like it is in other wealthy countries.  Much angst and stress surrounding job loss in the event of AGI development would be alleviated by providing all Americans health insurance, regardless of their employment status.

But even if we allowed people to work less and gave everyone health insurance, like we should, AGI would still cause more harm.  All the parts of the economy fueled by employees tied to office jobs would decline.  Maybe these parts of the economy would be replaced by healthier economic endeavors supporting the new lifestyle of Americans with more free time.  However, that transition period would cause economic hardship for many American businesses and employees as they adapted and retooled for a different reality.

Additionally, Americans would have more spare time, and many people with excessive free time fill it poorly.  While the United States is too fixated on jobs as the glue of American society, Americans who struggle to create their own sense of purpose outside of employment may suffer from a lack of fulfillment or cause disruptions for society.  Restructuring society would mean creating positive ways for Americans to spend their time in an economy that does not require their work output.  While many of us find purpose in other endeavors, many would also feel lost without their job as a guiding source of fulfillment.

AGI could be great for American society.  It could force us to restructure society to move away from our obsession with jobs, allowing us to provide healthcare for Americans, regardless of employment status.  It could give parents the free time to be parents.  It could give regular Americans the time to pursue passion projects and develop their communities when they are not working their part-time job.  AGI could improve every aspect of a compounding consumerist society.

But I do not think Americans are ready for the societal and mental shift away from jobs being the core of our existence.  Until we are ready for a larger conversation about restructuring society, we are not ready for AGI.  If a technology company develops AGI before we discuss a restructured society, Americans will suffer, and the American economy will fail.