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BT will shed as many as 55,000 workers by 2030

cnn.com

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Re: BT will shed as many as 55,000 workers by 2030

#11

Post by BurningFrog »

tyingq wrote: post #4

42% fewer employees, 7 years in the future? Including hopes for things like this: "Jansen also said that around 10,000 fewer people would be needed to service and repair digital networks, which “go wrong less often” and can be fixed more easily than older networks." That feels optimistic. Modernization does help with that sort of thing in some ways. But it also often adds complexity, higher dependency counts, etc.

I assume they've already converted part of the network, and this is empirical data.

But I'm with you in the sense that new technology that does more than what they replaced will absolutely be added and need fresh workforces.

Re: BT will shed as many as 55,000 workers by 2030

#13

Post by ttul »

justinzollars wrote: post #12

I'm working on an AI agent that functions as a Project Manager. It will pull Jira task statuses, ask for updates, lead standup, and measure velocity - all with a bit of sass.

Once in a while, you should swap out the PM’s personality with a new one and your robot HR manager can make the firing announcement. Come to think of it, every company could use a few AI-based middle managers for entertainment purposes.

Re: BT will shed as many as 55,000 workers by 2030

#15

Post by tailspin2019 »

etothepii wrote: post #2

Will they? Do we think any of the executives making this decision have any idea of the problems of adopting AI? Most companies today can barely create a functioning website that allows you to see and pay your bills.

> Most companies today can barely create a functioning website that allows you to see and pay your bills.

I haven’t dealt with them in recent years but based on previous dealings, I would put BT firmly in that category.

Re: BT will shed as many as 55,000 workers by 2030

#16

Post by Closi »

monero-xmr wrote: post #5

“Adopting AI” before there is any definitive proof that replacing workers with GPT tools is actually effective, is just cover for layoffs they were already planning on doing. If I needed to do a layoff now I’d just say “AI LLM Chatbot!!” woo-woo as cover.

I don't think it really classes as woo-woo - replacing live chat operatives with an LLM is a pretty straight forward and obvious use case.

Besides, the full 55k are about all automation, restructuring and digitisation efforts. Doesn't sound entirely unreasonable.

They probably are also looking to justify investment and say that they are investing into making the business more profitable for the next 7 years, so don't expect too much profit until after this investment is done.

Re: BT will shed as many as 55,000 workers by 2030

#17

Post by justinzollars »

ttul wrote: post #13
justinzollars wrote: post #12

I'm working on an AI agent that functions as a Project Manager. It will pull Jira task statuses, ask for updates, lead standup, and measure velocity - all with a bit of sass.

Once in a while, you should swap out the PM’s personality with a new one and your robot HR manager can make the firing announcement. Come to think of it, every company could use a few AI-based middle managers for entertainment purposes.

Thats a fantastic idea. I'll add it to my roadmap!

Re: BT will shed as many as 55,000 workers by 2030

#18

Post by onion2k »

tyingq wrote: post #4

42% fewer employees, 7 years in the future? Including hopes for things like this: "Jansen also said that around 10,000 fewer people would be needed to service and repair digital networks, which “go wrong less often” and can be fixed more easily than older networks." That feels optimistic. Modernization does help with that sort of thing in some ways. But it also often adds complexity, higher dependency counts, etc.

Modernization does help with that sort of thing in some ways. But it also often adds complexity, higher dependency counts, etc.

The complexity is inside opaque boxes that BT deploys though. Rather than fixing things like they did in the past, sitting at the end of a street patching cables in a roadside cabinet, BT's engineers of the future will just unclip a box that's returning an error code and plug in a new one. Or someone in a NOC will reset it from 300 miles away. Maybe some AI will do that. Or a cron job. With fibre networks once the cabinet is installed and plugged into the network there's very little physical work to do. That's what engineers do now - manually splicing and connecting copper wire. That's the work that's going away.

Re: BT will shed as many as 55,000 workers by 2030

#19

Post by blibble »

tyingq wrote: post #4

42% fewer employees, 7 years in the future? Including hopes for things like this: "Jansen also said that around 10,000 fewer people would be needed to service and repair digital networks, which “go wrong less often” and can be fixed more easily than older networks." That feels optimistic. Modernization does help with that sort of thing in some ways. But it also often adds complexity, higher dependency counts, etc.

it's passive fibre replacing copper placed in the ground 80 years ago

it's going to be more reliable even if they completely screw everything up

Re: BT will shed as many as 55,000 workers by 2030

#20

Post by moffkalast »

monero-xmr wrote: post #5

“Adopting AI” before there is any definitive proof that replacing workers with GPT tools is actually effective, is just cover for layoffs they were already planning on doing. If I needed to do a layoff now I’d just say “AI LLM Chatbot!!” woo-woo as cover.

Well GPT 3 has been a thing for years (and performed about as well as 3.5-turbo), surely someone's done some studies in that time?
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