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Tech leaders say AI means less work – staff say they work up to 90 hours a week

bbc.com

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Re: Tech leaders say AI means less work – staff say they work up to 90 hours a week

#41

Post by ratelimitsteve »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #20
ChiperSoft wrote: post #19

> A "sprint" is term for a common period in technology companies in which people work long hours in the weeks leading up to a release of a new feature or product. Alright, who bullshitted to the BBC? I know its fun to mess with the normies, but that was just mean.

Most companies I've been in carefully plan each sprint so as not to include work beyond the teams capacity, not sure where they got this definition of sprint from

I have an idea, but I also have conflicting idea that they couldn't find the source of this definition with both hands and a map.

Re: Tech leaders say AI means less work – staff say they work up to 90 hours a week

#42

Post by mawadev »

gymbeaux wrote: post #9
mawadev wrote: post #5

I find it funny how businesses can induce fear in people who think they are losing their jobs to ai. Then they lay people off anyway and make the remaining ones do the work of multiple roles. It is a kind of deadlock coming from stagnation, like how can you be motivated to use AI and make up for its mistakes by working overtime?

Everyone who could be considered a role model in my life has been “laid off” (fired) at least once. These are successful people. They’re all millionaires (not just the retired ones). We need to get over the fear and stigma of getting fired. It means nothing except your boss didn’t like you.

I never said anything about a role model, I said people having to do multiple roles in one. But I kind of agree with you, if your boss doesn't like you, you can literally build rockets to the moon and get laid off :^)

These days it is much harsher, if you are not socially accepted or liked, you are out of luck, your skill doesn't matter in their eyes, until... it does again

Re: Tech leaders say AI means less work – staff say they work up to 90 hours a week

#43

Post by closeparen »

gmerc wrote: post #32
p0w3n3d wrote: post #27

I'd say the worst 80% of the evil in the world comes from the management and the marketing. E.g. Boeing crashes - from the management. Private minecraft servers are illegal? - management No disc selling from Playstation? - Marketing Why mentioning here? Because the greedy marketing team again told managers the AI is making people 100x more efficient without any proof, anything, just to sell sell sell. And the greedy…

Almost there. Who controls management?

Pension fund managers, who in turn work for public employees and voters.

Re: Tech leaders say AI means less work – staff say they work up to 90 hours a week

#44

Post by [deleted] »

bamboozled wrote: post #34
p0w3n3d wrote: post #27

I'd say the worst 80% of the evil in the world comes from the management and the marketing. E.g. Boeing crashes - from the management. Private minecraft servers are illegal? - management No disc selling from Playstation? - Marketing Why mentioning here? Because the greedy marketing team again told managers the AI is making people 100x more efficient without any proof, anything, just to sell sell sell. And the greedy…

The other day I was thinking about Sam Atlantan claim the economy would be booming due to AI and the productivity gains…

[deleted]

Re: Tech leaders say AI means less work – staff say they work up to 90 hours a week

#45

Post by pixelready »

gmerc wrote: post #32
p0w3n3d wrote: post #27

I'd say the worst 80% of the evil in the world comes from the management and the marketing. E.g. Boeing crashes - from the management. Private minecraft servers are illegal? - management No disc selling from Playstation? - Marketing Why mentioning here? Because the greedy marketing team again told managers the AI is making people 100x more efficient without any proof, anything, just to sell sell sell. And the greedy…

Almost there. Who controls management?

To complete this thread:

“Managers” are controlled by the C-Suite through institutional politics and incentive structures, the C suite (via the CEO) is held accountable by shareholders, and the board (who are theoretically representing shareholder interests).

A rough picture of shareholder concentration is as follows: 50% of stocks and mutual funds are held by the top 1% richest, 87% by the top 10% richest. Vanguard/Blackrock/State Street cast about a quarter of the votes at S&P500 shareholder meetings, ostensibly in the interest of their shareholders.

So that’s who “controls” management, and whose interests drive most corporate decision making, though obviously there are nuances.

Re: Tech leaders say AI means less work – staff say they work up to 90 hours a week

#46

Post by asdff »

4rf4 wrote: post #15
matrix87 wrote: post #14

A lot of it is just fake work. There was already a bunch of fake work before AI. Now there's even more fake work. Organizations tend to produce more and more of it. The general impression I get is that the real bottleneck isn't needing to write code faster, it's understanding what the technical problems are and having the freedom to do what is needed (which is sometimes risky I guess). It doesn't seem like we're head…

I think the rude awakening is going to come when someone figures out how to build something better that wipes out 10+ firms who were delivering the same kind of thing. There will be a mauling - but it won't be because of this intangible technology box alone. It'll be because creative people figure out the rest of the pieces to re-imagine how something is done.

Better doesn't sell. That is why there are 10+ firms. There probably is a genuinely better solution at that point. But sales departments sell, so you are more likely to get the product that has the strongest sales department than one that is actually better on its own merits.

Re: Tech leaders say AI means less work – staff say they work up to 90 hours a week

#48

Post by jplusequalt »

gymbeaux wrote: post #9
mawadev wrote: post #5

I find it funny how businesses can induce fear in people who think they are losing their jobs to ai. Then they lay people off anyway and make the remaining ones do the work of multiple roles. It is a kind of deadlock coming from stagnation, like how can you be motivated to use AI and make up for its mistakes by working overtime?

Everyone who could be considered a role model in my life has been “laid off” (fired) at least once. These are successful people. They’re all millionaires (not just the retired ones). We need to get over the fear and stigma of getting fired. It means nothing except your boss didn’t like you.

>We need to get over the fear and stigma of getting fired. It means nothing except your boss didn’t like you.

It also means (in the US) you lose access to your healthcare.

Re: Tech leaders say AI means less work – staff say they work up to 90 hours a week

#49

Post by agenticworldcup »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #6
agenticworldcup wrote: post #3

There's a subtlety about using AI that can make folks less efficient if they aren't careful. Since LLMs spit out LOTS of text, a person may waste lots of valuable time simply meandering through responses, and trying to keep it all in their head. Contrast this to talking to a person who might just say "umm.. no no that's not how it works - because blah".

> Since LLMs spit out LOTS of text, a person may waste lots of valuable time simply meandering through responses, and trying to keep it all in their head. That is called "doing your job correctly". If you aren't actually understanding what the LLM puts out and reviewing it, you are going to get burned sooner or later.

Depends on what phase of the foraging you're doing. Working with AIs can mean anything from "be a google I can talk to" to "solve this very concrete problem right now". The rabbit hole potentials are very different for each one.

Re: Tech leaders say AI means less work – staff say they work up to 90 hours a week

#50

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

gymbeaux wrote: post #9
mawadev wrote: post #5

I find it funny how businesses can induce fear in people who think they are losing their jobs to ai. Then they lay people off anyway and make the remaining ones do the work of multiple roles. It is a kind of deadlock coming from stagnation, like how can you be motivated to use AI and make up for its mistakes by working overtime?

Everyone who could be considered a role model in my life has been “laid off” (fired) at least once. These are successful people. They’re all millionaires (not just the retired ones). We need to get over the fear and stigma of getting fired. It means nothing except your boss didn’t like you.

> We need to get over the fear [..] of getting fired.

You're speaking from a position of privilege.

Sure, a considerable number of people (If not a majority) here on Hacker News are decent earners and likely have enough savings to ride out a job loss for at least a few months.

But I recall my days while I was working a fast food job. If I lost my job, unless I found a new one within two weeks, I'd be homeless. When your paychecks are just barely covering the cost of living and saving is impossible, then getting fired is a genuine fear. It means losing the roof over your head and the food from the table.

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