BBC: What is the future of work?

Smell-o-vision, a television which allows you to smell things as well as see them; and a miracle pill which cures all disease. These predictions for the future were made in the 1930's, but so far they haven't come true. 

Making predictions for the future isn't easy- just ask tech billionaire, Elon Musk, who recently predicted that artificial intelligence will eventually mean that no one will have to work. In fact, there have been many predictions about the future of work, for example that robots will take over most jobs, and that everyone will work from home. 

During Covid, one of these predictions came true. Millions were forced to work from home. So what will work be like in the future? That's what we'll be discussing in this programme and, as usual, we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary too. 

But first I have a question for you, Beth. Another idea for the future is the 'four-day working week' where employees work four days for the same money as five. After Covid, many British companies gave the idea go, but out of the sixty companies taking part in a four-day working week trial in 2023, how many said they planned to continue with a shorter work week?

a) 52%   b) 72%  or  c) 92%

Hmm, I guess 92% of the companies plan to continue with a four-day week. 

OK, Beth, I'll reveal the answer later in the programme. Now, whatever Elon Musk thinks, as we've seen, it's difficult to make your predictions accurate. Here's Shaun Ley, presenter of BBC World Service programme, The Real Story, asking University of Cambridge professor, Brendan Burchell, what he thinks about predictions for the future of work:

Brendan Burchell, when you look at all the predictions that have been made, certainly in your working lifetime, do you take some of the things that are being predicted now with a large pinch of salt?

I do. I think we have to be skeptical. I think the track record for economists and other social scientists isn't good when we look...you know, for hundreds of years, a hundred years now, people have been predicting that they'll be really quite dramatic reductions in working time, like Elon Musk has just made, and previously those predictions- although we're heading very gradually in that direction- those predictions of very, very large changes in working time just haven't come to pass. 

Shaun asks if we should take predictions with a pinch of salt. To take something with a pinch of salt is an idom meaning to doubt that what you've been told is accurate or likely to come true. For example, if your friend always lies, you take what they say with a pinch of salt. 

Professor Burchell thinks predictions for the future of work have a bad track record. A track record means all the achievements or failures that someone has had in the past. When it comes to predicting the future of work, most predictions simply haven't come to pass, and old-fashioned way of saying 'happened' or 'come true'.

So, are predictions for a future of leisure, relaxing by the pool while robots do all the work, just a dream? Let's hear from Andrew Palmer, business editor for the Economist magazine, talking to BBC World Service programme, The Real Story:

I'm no a tech dystopian, I don't think that machines or AI are going to get rid of all jobs, but I do worry about a sequencing risk. So, there will be some disruption for AI. Some jobs, some professions are at risk. And, although economists like to say new jobs will crop up, they won't necessarily be aligned at the same time- there won't be coordination.