Unemployment

     A three day work week actually just means unemployment is at 40%. Unless there is some mechanism from the government enforcing otherwise, the AI driven future does not result in the same pay and reduced work hours for all, it results in increased inequality. As long as the marginal value of human labor is above zero, the most qualified and productive workers in the workforce will remain employed (in their specified domain), but there will be reduced need for unskilled (which in this sense could be "white-collar-aka-unskilled") labor to the same effect.

    Why would you keep the same exact headcount, but only make people work three days a week instead of five? Given the increased productivity gains of AI, you could keep everyone employed for five days a week and have a much more productive workforce. Or if there were truly diminishing returns (for some reason), and you have the same salary expense budget, why not just keep the best 3/5 of employees for the full week and lay off the remainder?

    Unless governmental control (some flavor of socialism or communism) is enforced to maintain a fully employed workforce, there's not economic mechanism for the idealized 2-3 day work week. Either we are doing productive work, and biting the bullet that is economic theory, or we are economically obsolete. There is no cheerful middle ground, it just sounds good to say out loud.