You might already be aware of the widely discussed 2013 article On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant by David Graeber The major points (and why they are even more relevant in the age of AI are):
Technological progress made it ==possible to reduce working hours== (as Keynes predicted), yet societies have not adopted it. Instead of freeing time, systems manufactured more jobs. When John Maynard Keynes Predicted a 15-Hour Workweek “in a Hundred Year’s Time” (1930) Productive and manual jobs have ==declined because of automation== (and now because of AI thats declining even faster), but white-collar bureaucratic and pseudo-service roles have exploded. Many workers privately believe ==their work has no real societal value==, creating psychological harm, resentment, and existential dissatisfaction. The system benefits from people staying busy, disciplined, and dependent. Idle citizens with free time are viewed as politically dangerous, so ==employment becomes a moral obligation.== Society perversely ==rewards low-value or exploitative roles more than essential ones== (nurses, teachers, sanitation workers). This fuels resentment against people with meaningful jobs, not meaningless ones. He later published a book on the same topic, and outlined 5 major types of BS jobs
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