Even as they promise AI will supercharge productivity, tech leaders are sending a clear message: any efficiency gains won’t help individual workers.
During a podcast appearance last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that he doesn’t “expect AI” to lead to a shorter four-hour work week. He argued that workers are “secretly” going to be “happy” about being “much busier” and working even harder thanks to AI — a bizarre and out-of-touch comment from a billionaire with extraordinary power over the lives of working people.
Now, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth has similarly cracked the whip, as Business Insider reports — and he’s even willing to berate the company’s workers for asking for more time off.
During a July Q&A with staff, Bosworth shut down an employee who asked if AI productivity gains could be used to revive “Meta Days,” a cancelled holiday program that once allowed staff to take more days off a year.
Bosworth was apparently appalled at the idea, saying that “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 thinly-veiled implication at a tech giant that’s been rocked by repeated rounds of brutal layoffs: you should be so happy to still be employed!
“We got billions of people using our products every day,” he added. “I get an extra hour. You know what I do with it? I put it into that.”
The executive then dug his heels even further, personally insulting the staffer for asking about work-life balance.
“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,” he said, per BI. “Ask your parents what they think of that as a career strategy.”
It’s a harrowing reaction, highlighting not just how AI is leading to widespread burnout, but just how grim the working environment at Meta has become as of late. The Mark Zuckerberg-led company fired around 8,000 employees earlier this year as its attempts to catch up to the competition in the AI space continue to sputter.
In June, Zuckerberg acknowledged plummeting morale among workers, while offering underwhelming ideas to lift their spirits.
Taking time off has become a massive point of contention, with a lawsuit filed last month accusing Meta of using AI tools to tag workers who had taken time off for maternity leave or disability accommodation, in order to lay them off later.
After his tirade, Bosworth appeared to have had a moment of clarity. He apologized for coming down “too hard” on the employee, per BI, while trying to brush off his abrasive commentary as “tongue-in-cheek.”
But the damage was already done. Bosworth’s crashout once again highlights how precarious the situation for knowledge workers has become. Any productivity gains from AI are unlikely to lead to any meaningful improvements in the quality of life for them, even as they’re already struggling to stay employed.
Besides, as managers are finding out the hard way, those productivity gains appear to be far more elusive than company leaders led us to believe.
More on Meta: Sam Altman Says Even the Power of AI Will Never Lead to a Shorter Work Week
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