The ,Amt für Zeit' is a specialist authority for matters of time. With an official wink, it records time emergencies, accepts reports of time theft and makes visible how unequally time is distributed in our society.
Artificial intelligence once again promises efficiency and relief through technological progress. But people who use AI in their everyday work don’t necessarily work less; they often simply get more done. Time gained rarely turns into free afternoons. Instead it becomes new tasks, shorter deadlines and higher expectations.
This pattern isn’t new. Over the last 30 years, only a small share of productivity gains has gone into shorter working hours. The same threatens to happen with AI. On top of that, time is already unequally distributed today. People who provide care, work shifts or hold several jobs have far less time than others. Even so, time scarcity is usually treated as a private matter, a question of personal time management rather than one of how society distributes time.
An authority that asks questions
This is where the ,Amt für Zeit' comes in. As a specialist authority for matters of time, it takes time out of the private sphere and into public space. The official form is a deliberate choice. With a wink, the Office adopts the language and instruments of public administration, meaning forms, information leaflets and regulations. It applies them to something no authority has so far considered its responsibility. This creates a framework that unsettles, invites participation and asks a serious question: Who does our time actually belong to?
How the Office works
On amtfuerzeit.ch, citizens can calculate their personal time emergency and report time theft. When the week has once again moved faster than they have, they can leave a message on the Time Troubles Hotline. The collected reports feed into an ongoing public survey. The Office also offers information leaflets and regulations to print out and pass on, as well as public consultation hours.
Project background
The Office for Time was created as part of the project “Experiments in Reducing Paid Working Hours” (EvA) by Dezentrum and the CDE at the University of Bern, funded by Stiftung Mercator Schweiz.
