OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman says artificial intelligence is unlikely to usher in an era of four-hour workweeks, arguing that human ambition and competitiveness will continue to drive people to work more.
Speaking on the Relentless podcast with host Ti Morse, Altman said technology has long promised to reduce the amount of time people spend working, but that prediction has never materialised on a large scale.
"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," Altman said.
He acknowledged that advances in technology have improved quality of life and given people more leisure time compared with previous generations.
"But somehow we never get the promise of the four-hour workweek at mass scale in society," he said. "And I don't expect AI to change that."
Altman said AI-driven productivity gains are more likely to raise expectations than reduce workloads.
"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," he said.
His remarks come as businesses increasingly adopt AI tools to automate tasks and improve efficiency, prompting debate over whether the technology will reduce working hours or simply reshape the nature of work.
