6 ms·

Jack Ma Says 12-Hour Work Week Could Be the Norm

37 points by un_montagnard 7y ago

bithavoc 7y ago
Here's a 5 minute summary of the conversation between Elon Musk and Jack Ma. https://youtu.be/aHGd6LqAVzw https://youtu.be/aHGd6LqAVzw
- chrischen 7y ago
  Honestly I just see Elon being trolled in that video. It’s easy to see it the other way around if you come from a different frame of reference. But from my frame of referenance the idea of commercializing Mars, AI revolting against humans, are ludicrous ideas. AI can be bad, but only through abuse by humans and not by the plot of Terminator. Mars is great but I feel like we have more pressing issue to solve. Being rich and privileged can blind us to the pressing needs and focus on overly lofty ambitions.
  - baby 7y ago
    Yeah but... come on.
  - wavefunction 7y ago
    I would take colonizing Mars (with 12 hour work days) over wage slaving 12 hours a day.
justicezyx 7y ago
This guy ask employee to work 996 and defended that practice openly. And frankly, he is about clueless as most citizens on AI (as demonstrated in his awkward interchange with Leon recently), there isn't much of weight of such statement...
jjtheblunt 7y ago
Where, by the subjunctive mood verb “could”, they mean “never will be”?
- AlEinstein 7y ago
  Just conditional mood rather than subjunctive I think. http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/grammar_moods.html http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/grammar_moods.html
mogadsheu 7y ago
The Ma/Musk AI debate in China showed two very different societal approaches to how to handle the impact of AI. Ma’s approach is: everybody work less and enjoy the perks. Musk’s is: learn AI or perish, and beware the consequences. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, although the messages are different. I believe this because Musk’s assertion of an elite few living in tall spires and the masses living in relative poverty was overtly dismissed by Ma, but I felt that his facial expressions suggested that he was hiding his agreement of it.
- Aperocky 7y ago
  Musk describe what will really happen though. The employer will always hire as few as possible, unless it’s some relative of a director. It’s too early but I think in the long term UBI is pretty much the only solution.
  - daenz 7y ago
    >I think in the long term UBI is pretty much the only solution. Or...the costs of goods adjust as demand shifts, and things previously not considered "a job" start being considered jobs. I don't know why people get this idea in their head that if suddenly everyone works less for the same amount, everything stays the same price. Producers still want consumers, so prices shift. In the future, you might get paid to judge how moving and emotional music sounds. Or how good food tastes. As long as there exist services that humans want and we can't yet automate, there will always be an economy.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      > In the future, you might get paid to judge how moving and emotional music sounds. Or how good food tastes. Those examples sound pretty tractable for statistics, +/- better measurement technology in the case of food. Emotion isn't magic, there are whole industries that already know how to design things to be "moving and emotional". > As long as there exist services that humans want and we can't yet automate, there will always be an economy. The issue isn't "an economy", but an economy where most population can find gainful employment during their entire working age. This is increasingly becoming less likely in the future, and we need to find a way to deal with that. (Also, the prices are flexible, but if they shift too high or too low, producers start doing problematic things or give up on the product entirely. This is how you end up with farmers letting tons of perfectly good food to rot, while 10 minutes down the road there's a city full of starving people.)
antiviral 7y ago
If this ever happens, the reality will be closer to having companies keeping 30% of the people to work 40 hours and just not bothering to hire the other 70%.
- thatgerhard 7y ago
  This is what will happen. one person will learn 2 skills, get a small increase and work a normal week, while person 2 get downsized.
rdlecler1 7y ago
As long as we have housing and health as limited resources people will just use time to work harder to obtain those resources.
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
I read this as 12 hour workday and got irate. That’s the tune he usually sings... https://www.fastcompany.com/90335059/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-says-12-hour-workdays-are-a-blessing-but-hes-wrong https://www.fastcompany.com/90335059/alibaba-founder-jack-ma...
- Aperocky 7y ago
  Pretty much what Alibaba is practicing in China.
- ummonk 7y ago
  Yeah, I was about to go on about how that is the worst part of East Asian culture and then realized it said "week".
shams93 7y ago
Instead what we get are some people working 140 hours for 40 hours pay while millions are completely pushed out of the economy. These kind of benefits will not happen automatically it's going to take serious class warfare and real revolution and bloodshed to get there .
- sun_n_surf 7y ago
  Came here to say this. What fantasy world are these guys living in? Most people I know barely get weekends to themselves, what with work being pushed passive aggressively through WhatsApp. And no, it is not a choice. For every person who decides to Eat, Pray, Love, there is a hungry guy waiting to work 10 hours a week more to get that job. It is brutal out there.
- sasaf5 7y ago
  The benefits not happening automatically doesn't mean bloodshed is the solution. I like to think that we could solve the problem with intelligence and design. I forsee that some nation will come up with a better system that does not require everyone to be consuming and employed. Maybe a UBI? Maybe some universal dividend on capital? The savings from having only the best workers employed, combined with the fruits of leisure, will propel that nation ahead and others will struggle to catch on with it.
  - PeterStuer 7y ago
    More likely they will be destabilized/invaded/boycotted/cherry-picked/psyopsed/bombed-into-freedom or beat into submission in any other way.
    - sasaf5 7y ago
      +embargoed. Soft power is crucial to prevent that, that's why the surpluses of such system should be directed to arts and technology.
olivermarks 7y ago
Oligarchs crystal ball gazing about future money making opportunities for minions after they have automated most job roles out of existence.
- option 7y ago
  Automating whatever could be automated without loss of quality is the right thing to do. Making sure everybody have high living standards (as supported by above automation) is a job of democratic governments
godelmachine 7y ago
At the risk of being downvoted - I have stopped paying attention to Jack Ma. He only knows to to talk. Edit - Since someone’s asking for an explanation as to why I stopped patting attention to Mr Ma ... I have seen 2-3 videos where he sounds really inspirational. Like one where he breaks down a persons career timeline and what he would be doing at particular age groups. (Probably the most viral video of him) Second video where he speaks on how we humans can stay relevant in age of AI (By changing education in his words, teaching children to paint, play sports et al which we already do anyways). The second video was where I started doubting if he’s a clueless person and just goes around fooling people. Final nail in the coffin was his video with Elon Musk. I couldn’t believe for a minute when Mr Ma says he has just returned from Mars. After that he said AI should be named Alibaba Intelligence (If he had only cracked open a book and read about the Dartmouth conference). And then the icing on the cake, the answer to AI is love. I won’t deny that love may be answer to AI, but Jack was just mincing words to make another inspirational video.
- baby 7y ago
  Someone needs to post the video of him and elon musk here for those who haven’t seen it.
  - ed 7y ago
    https://youtu.be/f3lUEnMaiAU https://youtu.be/f3lUEnMaiAU
  - ridaj 7y ago
    https://youtu.be/aHGd6LqAVzw https://youtu.be/aHGd6LqAVzw (just the cringe) I didn't really care for what Jack Ma had to say before seeing this video. After seeing it, I feel like he should be actively avoided as a source of wisdom.
- dpau 7y ago
  In addition to him not knowing anything, he could at least start reducing hours for his workers at Alibaba: > "At least 40 companies, including Huawei and Alibaba Group, have implemented the 996 schedule or an even more intensive alternative." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system
undefined3840 7y ago
Wouldn’t be surprised if this guy ended up being a puppet for some larger entity this entire time ala Epstein.
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  I’ve wondered about that myself. Ma’s background, the things he says in public, his weird movie, and so on, don’t match the concept of a ruthless businessman. He could well be the friendly face of a cabal of PLA generals or something.
factsaresacred 7y ago
> The economic problem may be solved...man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem - how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well...three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. — John Maynard Keynes in 1930. Still waiting for this to be true before buying into the 12-hour work week theory.
onetimemanytime 7y ago
Jut image what father /mother you could be: leave work at 9 and come back at 9, exhausted. 6 days a week. Time with your kids? I guess one could it for a year or months at certain periods of their life but as norm?
TomMckenny 7y ago
Possible indeed, Keynes pointed that out a couple generations ago. And as always it depends solely on whether society is run such that people benefit from or compete with technology.

37 points by un_montagnard 7y ago

Here's a 5 minute summary of the conversation between Elon Musk and Jack Ma. https://youtu.be/aHGd6LqAVzw https://youtu.be/aHGd6LqAVzw

chrischen 7y ago
Honestly I just see Elon being trolled in that video. It’s easy to see it the other way around if you come from a different frame of reference. But from my frame of referenance the idea of commercializing Mars, AI revolting against humans, are ludicrous ideas. AI can be bad, but only through abuse by humans and not by the plot of Terminator. Mars is great but I feel like we have more pressing issue to solve. Being rich and privileged can blind us to the pressing needs and focus on overly lofty ambitions.
- baby 7y ago
  Yeah but... come on.
- wavefunction 7y ago
  I would take colonizing Mars (with 12 hour work days) over wage slaving 12 hours a day.

justicezyx 7y ago

This guy ask employee to work 996 and defended that practice openly. And frankly, he is about clueless as most citizens on AI (as demonstrated in his awkward interchange with Leon recently), there isn't much of weight of such statement...

jjtheblunt 7y ago

Where, by the subjunctive mood verb “could”, they mean “never will be”?

AlEinstein 7y ago
Just conditional mood rather than subjunctive I think. http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/grammar_moods.html http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/grammar_moods.html

mogadsheu 7y ago

The Ma/Musk AI debate in China showed two very different societal approaches to how to handle the impact of AI. Ma’s approach is: everybody work less and enjoy the perks. Musk’s is: learn AI or perish, and beware the consequences. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, although the messages are different. I believe this because Musk’s assertion of an elite few living in tall spires and the masses living in relative poverty was overtly dismissed by Ma, but I felt that his facial expressions suggested that he was hiding his agreement of it.

Aperocky 7y ago
Musk describe what will really happen though. The employer will always hire as few as possible, unless it’s some relative of a director. It’s too early but I think in the long term UBI is pretty much the only solution.
- daenz 7y ago
  >I think in the long term UBI is pretty much the only solution. Or...the costs of goods adjust as demand shifts, and things previously not considered "a job" start being considered jobs. I don't know why people get this idea in their head that if suddenly everyone works less for the same amount, everything stays the same price. Producers still want consumers, so prices shift. In the future, you might get paid to judge how moving and emotional music sounds. Or how good food tastes. As long as there exist services that humans want and we can't yet automate, there will always be an economy.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > In the future, you might get paid to judge how moving and emotional music sounds. Or how good food tastes. Those examples sound pretty tractable for statistics, +/- better measurement technology in the case of food. Emotion isn't magic, there are whole industries that already know how to design things to be "moving and emotional". > As long as there exist services that humans want and we can't yet automate, there will always be an economy. The issue isn't "an economy", but an economy where most population can find gainful employment during their entire working age. This is increasingly becoming less likely in the future, and we need to find a way to deal with that. (Also, the prices are flexible, but if they shift too high or too low, producers start doing problematic things or give up on the product entirely. This is how you end up with farmers letting tons of perfectly good food to rot, while 10 minutes down the road there's a city full of starving people.)

antiviral 7y ago

If this ever happens, the reality will be closer to having companies keeping 30% of the people to work 40 hours and just not bothering to hire the other 70%.

thatgerhard 7y ago
This is what will happen. one person will learn 2 skills, get a small increase and work a normal week, while person 2 get downsized.

rdlecler1 7y ago

As long as we have housing and health as limited resources people will just use time to work harder to obtain those resources.

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago

I read this as 12 hour workday and got irate. That’s the tune he usually sings... https://www.fastcompany.com/90335059/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-says-12-hour-workdays-are-a-blessing-but-hes-wrong https://www.fastcompany.com/90335059/alibaba-founder-jack-ma...

Aperocky 7y ago
Pretty much what Alibaba is practicing in China.
ummonk 7y ago
Yeah, I was about to go on about how that is the worst part of East Asian culture and then realized it said "week".

shams93 7y ago

Instead what we get are some people working 140 hours for 40 hours pay while millions are completely pushed out of the economy. These kind of benefits will not happen automatically it's going to take serious class warfare and real revolution and bloodshed to get there .

sun_n_surf 7y ago
Came here to say this. What fantasy world are these guys living in? Most people I know barely get weekends to themselves, what with work being pushed passive aggressively through WhatsApp. And no, it is not a choice. For every person who decides to Eat, Pray, Love, there is a hungry guy waiting to work 10 hours a week more to get that job. It is brutal out there.
sasaf5 7y ago
The benefits not happening automatically doesn't mean bloodshed is the solution. I like to think that we could solve the problem with intelligence and design. I forsee that some nation will come up with a better system that does not require everyone to be consuming and employed. Maybe a UBI? Maybe some universal dividend on capital? The savings from having only the best workers employed, combined with the fruits of leisure, will propel that nation ahead and others will struggle to catch on with it.
- PeterStuer 7y ago
  More likely they will be destabilized/invaded/boycotted/cherry-picked/psyopsed/bombed-into-freedom or beat into submission in any other way.
  - sasaf5 7y ago
    +embargoed. Soft power is crucial to prevent that, that's why the surpluses of such system should be directed to arts and technology.

olivermarks 7y ago

Oligarchs crystal ball gazing about future money making opportunities for minions after they have automated most job roles out of existence.

option 7y ago
Automating whatever could be automated without loss of quality is the right thing to do. Making sure everybody have high living standards (as supported by above automation) is a job of democratic governments

godelmachine 7y ago

At the risk of being downvoted - I have stopped paying attention to Jack Ma. He only knows to to talk. Edit - Since someone’s asking for an explanation as to why I stopped patting attention to Mr Ma ... I have seen 2-3 videos where he sounds really inspirational. Like one where he breaks down a persons career timeline and what he would be doing at particular age groups. (Probably the most viral video of him) Second video where he speaks on how we humans can stay relevant in age of AI (By changing education in his words, teaching children to paint, play sports et al which we already do anyways). The second video was where I started doubting if he’s a clueless person and just goes around fooling people. Final nail in the coffin was his video with Elon Musk. I couldn’t believe for a minute when Mr Ma says he has just returned from Mars. After that he said AI should be named Alibaba Intelligence (If he had only cracked open a book and read about the Dartmouth conference). And then the icing on the cake, the answer to AI is love. I won’t deny that love may be answer to AI, but Jack was just mincing words to make another inspirational video.

baby 7y ago
Someone needs to post the video of him and elon musk here for those who haven’t seen it.
- ed 7y ago
  https://youtu.be/f3lUEnMaiAU https://youtu.be/f3lUEnMaiAU
- ridaj 7y ago
  https://youtu.be/aHGd6LqAVzw https://youtu.be/aHGd6LqAVzw (just the cringe) I didn't really care for what Jack Ma had to say before seeing this video. After seeing it, I feel like he should be actively avoided as a source of wisdom.
dpau 7y ago
In addition to him not knowing anything, he could at least start reducing hours for his workers at Alibaba: > "At least 40 companies, including Huawei and Alibaba Group, have implemented the 996 schedule or an even more intensive alternative." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system

undefined3840 7y ago

Wouldn’t be surprised if this guy ended up being a puppet for some larger entity this entire time ala Epstein.

goatinaboat 7y ago
I’ve wondered about that myself. Ma’s background, the things he says in public, his weird movie, and so on, don’t match the concept of a ruthless businessman. He could well be the friendly face of a cabal of PLA generals or something.

factsaresacred 7y ago

> The economic problem may be solved...man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem - how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well...three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. — John Maynard Keynes in 1930. Still waiting for this to be true before buying into the 12-hour work week theory.

onetimemanytime 7y ago

Jut image what father /mother you could be: leave work at 9 and come back at 9, exhausted. 6 days a week. Time with your kids? I guess one could it for a year or months at certain periods of their life but as norm?

TomMckenny 7y ago

Possible indeed, Keynes pointed that out a couple generations ago. And as always it depends solely on whether society is run such that people benefit from or compete with technology.