AI will not replace humans. IBM's CEOs and managers will replace humans with AI. Shareholders will force IBM to replace humans with AI. Let us stop blaming the only thing that is _not_ making any decision. Capitalism is a powerful idea that will kill the same people that vouch for it.
IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI
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Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI
#42IBM as a company barely makes sense at all at this point. They are a very large and a former tech company that mostly coasts along on doing expensive consulting projects around me-too clones of things that other people have invented just so they can still pretend to be a tech company. So you can do things with AI, cloud, and databases with them. But they aren't really leaders in any of that for a long time. And havin…
If you're this massive inertial machine and the problem is to some degree artificial and a waste of internal resources but someone thinks it isn't, having someone like IBM on the hook gives credibility to the argument that they did their due diligence to solve the problem. Business at scale has a lot of childish fingerpointing. "No one ever got fired for hiring/buying IBM" as the saying goes.
Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI
#43AI will not replace humans. IBM's CEOs and managers will replace humans with AI. Shareholders will force IBM to replace humans with AI. Let us stop blaming the only thing that is _not_ making any decision. Capitalism is a powerful idea that will kill the same people that vouch for it.
Managers will do every job.
Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI
#44Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI
#45I won't comment on whether this is good or even workable idea, but I will acknowledge this announcement is kinda genius. Playing into fears about AI replacing large segments of the labour force in the coming years invites calls for regulators to slow down their competition. While at the same time this announcement makes investors happy because IBM is signalling that they're looking to both cut costs and embrace AI.
But, let's say it is. It might play well with investors, but the idea that it's going to spur regulation or legislation to slow down AI development seems optimistic at best. That assumes a government and elected officials who are looking out for workers and not the investors who are going to be giddy about this.
In the U.S., at least, government has been actively trying to suppress wages and maintain higher levels of unemployment. Why would this spur any action to slow down AI?
Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI
#46Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI
#47Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2023/05/01/ibm-...
Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI
#48IBM as a company barely makes sense at all at this point. They are a very large and a former tech company that mostly coasts along on doing expensive consulting projects around me-too clones of things that other people have invented just so they can still pretend to be a tech company. So you can do things with AI, cloud, and databases with them. But they aren't really leaders in any of that for a long time. And havin…
Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI
#49IBM as a company barely makes sense at all at this point. They are a very large and a former tech company that mostly coasts along on doing expensive consulting projects around me-too clones of things that other people have invented just so they can still pretend to be a tech company. So you can do things with AI, cloud, and databases with them. But they aren't really leaders in any of that for a long time. And havin…
Consulting is less than a third of their revenue and regardless of how you feel about consulting, it seems kind of idiotic to claim that this "barely makes sense at all at this point". Are the only companies that make sense the ones that work on fad bullshit that makes the front page of HN?
Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI
#50I won't comment on whether this is good or even workable idea, but I will acknowledge this announcement is kinda genius. Playing into fears about AI replacing large segments of the labour force in the coming years invites calls for regulators to slow down their competition. While at the same time this announcement makes investors happy because IBM is signalling that they're looking to both cut costs and embrace AI.
This assumes that IBM is not serious about trying to replace jobs, but is trying to make a strategic 3D chess move. I'm very skeptical that this is the case. But, let's say it is. It might play well with investors, but the idea that it's going to spur regulation or legislation to slow down AI development seems optimistic at best. That assumes a government and elected officials who are looking out for workers and not…