I watched 刘强东’s speech in Wuzhen. He said that in the future employees might work only one day a week, or even just one hour. Do you think that’s realistic?

It sounds a bit exaggerated, but his point that robots can free people from heavy labor isn’t surprising. JD.com is even planning to build the world’s first unmanned delivery station next year.

Drones above, unmanned vehicles below, and robotic arms in the middle doing fully automated loading—it feels like a sci-fi movie. Even in my marketing department, I can feel automation speeding up.

But he also mentioned that solid-state batteries aren’t mature yet—low yield rates and poor low-temperature performance. If these issues aren’t solved, full-scale robot adoption will still take time.

Still, if social logistics costs can really be reduced from 14% to under 10% as he said, that would be a clear case of cost reduction and efficiency gains for companies. With higher profits, job types will also change.

Yes, maybe future ‘office workers’ will mainly monitor equipment and do simple maintenance—jobs that are ‘easy but require thinking.’ As the saying goes in China, ‘skills never weigh you down,’ and digital skills seem even more important now.

But shorter working hours aren’t necessarily all good. If efficiency rises and competition gets fiercer, won’t people feel even more anxious?

In the end, it comes down to systems and distribution. If technology truly brings society into a positive cycle and gives people more time freedom, it may actually help them think about what kind of life they want to live.