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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

#111

Post by hinkley »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #11

IBM 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…

IBM’s MO now, especially for the Global Services arm, is Dazzle Them With Bullshit.

They come up with solutions so baroque that it’s exhausting even to hear them talk about it. So you just hire more IGS people to take care of the problems they created. It’s a racket, based on them literally not making sense.

Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI

#112

Post by elorant »

piyh wrote: post #94
Upvoter33 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the true thing is that IBM has ceased to be a leader in Computer Science. They used to be! But they gave that up long ago, and have resorted to various publicity stunts (e.g., remember Jeopardy?). But sure, they may be a leader in materials and semiconductors (though honestly I have no idea, that's not my space).

They're cutting edge on quantum computing, can't think of anything more computer science than that.

And what are the real life applications of quantum computing?

Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI

#113

Post by RoyGBivCap »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #97
fdye wrote: post #74

This is just using the AI hype as cover to not get slammed by the markets. If they came out and said "We are pausing hiring..." the markets would rightly be like "Man they are screwed..." Expect to see more of this from zombie companies in the future, as long as they spend $20/mo on a ChatGPT subscription somewhere they are probably not violating SEC disclosures either.

Yep if you read what the CEO said the quote was that they "could" replace workers with AI over five years and as the tech improves. That's just pure speculation and bullshitting, like when Elon said Tesla cars will be fully self driving vehicles in five years. It's market pumping talk from a company with a vested interest in selling "AI" to enterprises.

[flagged]

Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI

#115

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #102
abakker wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd point out at that Ginni Rometty was a bad CEO, but that doesn't mean that people there didn't do good research. Like, they're pretty unrelated. Research and Development is notoriously hard to commercialize. Over here in HN land, we just say that product market fit is poor or that products didn't get traction, but those are just as akin to R&D as anything. A better model was that Rometty was not good at choosing w…

What good is a R&D performed that can't be commercialized? To me, that is just good research followed by bad development. No one investing in IBM is expecting it to be a public works project. Lookup the saga of HP's memristor followed by "The Machine" for a similar story.

> What good is a R&D performed that can't be commercialized?

Then I guess we can throw out Xerox Parc's NLS because they never commercialized "windows, hypertext, graphics, video conferencing, the computer mouse, word processing, dynamic file linking, revision control, and a collaborative real-time editor." They were commercialized by others later on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos

We can also throw out most psych, social science, archeology, and history R&D, too.

Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI

#117

Post by AlbertCory »

swexbe wrote: post #106
AlbertCory wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was always the case that IBM stuff was way overpriced compared to alternatives but a senior manager who bought it could rest easy, knowing that if he called and complained, they'd be right on it. Even 10 years in the future, they'd be right on it. That's worth something to some people, who really don't give a shit about technology and just want the problem solved.

Now when they call I guess they'll be directed towards the AI chat bot helpline :)

Yup. Never underestimate the ability of middle managers to zero in on the company's main competitive advantage and wipe it out with cost-cutting, e.g.

"We have a great beer customers love? Great, now we're going to use cheaper ingredients. They'll never notice."

"We have great Mexican food, because everything's made fresh on-site? Great, now we're going to shift to a central commissary."

Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI

#118

Post by hraedon »

RoyGBivCap wrote: post #113
qbasic_forever wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep if you read what the CEO said the quote was that they "could" replace workers with AI over five years and as the tech improves. That's just pure speculation and bullshitting, like when Elon said Tesla cars will be fully self driving vehicles in five years. It's market pumping talk from a company with a vested interest in selling "AI" to enterprises.

[flagged]

I mean, are they wrong? Elon promised coast-to-coast summoning in 2016 with a time horizon of two years! there were supposed to be a million telsa robotaxis by the end of 2020!

Like, putting aside everything else, it had to have been very obvious internally that neither of those goals were plausible in that timeframe without miracles happening.

Re: IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI

#119

Post by willcipriano »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #115
sidewndr46 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What good is a R&D performed that can't be commercialized? To me, that is just good research followed by bad development. No one investing in IBM is expecting it to be a public works project. Lookup the saga of HP's memristor followed by "The Machine" for a similar story.

> What good is a R&D performed that can't be commercialized? Then I guess we can throw out Xerox Parc's NLS because they never commercialized "windows, hypertext, graphics, video conferencing, the computer mouse, word processing, dynamic file linking, revision control, and a collaborative real-time editor." They were commercialized by others later on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos We can also…

> We can also throw out most psych, social science

Yes.

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