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Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

theregister.com

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Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#141

Post by izabera »

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #90
Zanfa wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Search is distinct from Google's expansive ad network. Google search is now garbage, but their ads are everywhere are more profitable than ever.

On Google's earnings call - within the last couple of weeks - they explicitly stated that their stronger-than-expected growth in the quarter was due to a large unexpected increase in search revenues[0]. That's a distinct line-item from their ads business. >Google’s core search and advertising business grew almost 10 per cent to $50.7bn in the quarter, surpassing estimates for between 8 per cent and 9 per cent.[0] The…

This is anecdotal but here's a random thing I searched for yesterday https://i.imgur.com/XBr0D17.jpeg

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#142

Post by causal »

nirui wrote: post #79

There are few problems in this research, first: > AI chatbots have had no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation But Generative AI is not just AI chatbots . There are ones that generate sounds/music, ones that generates imagines etc. Another thing is, the research only looked Denmark, a nation with fairly healthy altitude towards work-life-balance, not a nation that gives proud to people w…

That last point is especially important.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#143

Post by causal »

raincole wrote: post #7

> We examine the labor market effects of AI chatbots using two large-scale adoption surveys (late 2023 and 2024) covering 11 exposed occupations (25,000 workers, 7,000 workplaces), linked to matched employer-employee data in Denmark. It sounds like they didn't ask those who got laid off.

Yeah this is like counting horses a few years after the automobile was invented.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#144

Post by blendergeek »

ryandrake wrote: post #132
colinmorelli wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As for correctness, they mentioned the LLM citing links that the person can verify. So there is some protection at that level. But, also, the threshold of things we manage ourselves versus when we look to others is constantly moving as technology advances and things change. We're always making risk tradeoff decisions measuring the probability we get sued or some harm comes to us versus trusting that we can handle som…

If it’s also returning links, wouldn’t it be faster and more authoritative to just go read the official links and skip the LLM slop entirely?

No. The LLM in the story found the necessary links. In this case the LLM was a better search engine.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#145

Post by 9rx »

jspdown wrote: post #52
paulsutter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this a worry? Sounds wonderful

I'm a bit worried about the social impacts. When a sector collapses and become irrelevant, all its workers no longer need to be employed. Some will no longer have any useful qualifications and won't be able to find another job. They will have to go back to training and find a different activity. It's fine if it's an isolated event. Much worse when the event is repeated in many sectors almost simultaneously.

> They will have to go back to training

Why? When we've seen a sector collapse, the new jobs that rush in to fill the void are new, never seen before, and thus don't have training. You just jump in and figure things out along the way like everyone else.

The problem, though, is that people usually seek out jobs that they like. When that collapses they are left reeling and aren't apt to want to embrace something new. That mental hurdle is hard to overcome.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#146

Post by andy99 »

gilbetron wrote: post #102
decimalenough wrote: post #88

I'm generally an AI skeptic, but it seems awfully early to make this call. Aside from the obvious frontline support, artist, junior coder etc, a whole bunch of white collar "pay me for advice on X" jobs (dietician, financial advice, tax agent, etc), where the advice follows set patterns only mildly tailored for the recipient, seem to be severely at risk. Example: I recently used Gemini for some tax advice that would…

How do you know it was correct without being a tax expert? And consulting a tax expert would give you legal recourse if it was wrong.

I think in many cases, chatbots may make information accessible to people who otherwise wouldn't have it, like in the OP's case. But I'm more sceptical it's replacing experts in specialize subjects that had been previously making a living at them. They would be serving different markets.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#147

Post by krisoft »

ryandrake wrote: post #132
colinmorelli wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As for correctness, they mentioned the LLM citing links that the person can verify. So there is some protection at that level. But, also, the threshold of things we manage ourselves versus when we look to others is constantly moving as technology advances and things change. We're always making risk tradeoff decisions measuring the probability we get sued or some harm comes to us versus trusting that we can handle som…

If it’s also returning links, wouldn’t it be faster and more authoritative to just go read the official links and skip the LLM slop entirely?

Sure. But often you don’t know how to find the information or what are the right technical terms for your problem.

In a more general sense sometimes, but not always, it is easier to verify something than to come up with it at the first place.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#148

Post by DharmaPolice »

atrus wrote: post #130
ozgrakkurt wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can’t replace a human for support, it is not even close to replacing a junior developer. It can’t replace any advice job because it lies instead of erroring. As an example if you want diet advice, it can lie to you very convincingly so there is no point in getting advice from it. Main value you get from a programmer is they understand what they are doing and they can take the responsibility of what they are develo…

> As an example if you want diet advice, it can lie to you very convincingly so there is no point in getting advice from it. How exactly is this different from getting advice from someone who acts confidently knowledgeable? Diet advice is an especially egregious example, since I can have 40 different dieticians give me 72 different diet/meal plans with them saying 100% certainty that this is the correct one. It's bad…

If a junior developer lies about something important, they can be fired and you can try to find someone else who wouldn't do the same thing. At the very least you could warn the person not to lie again or they're gone. It's not clear that you can do the same thing with an LLM as they don't know they've lied.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#149

Post by munksbeer »

clarionbell wrote: post #40
cornholio wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is not deglobalizing, US is.

The world is deglobalizing. EU has been cutting off from Russia since the war started, and forcing medical industries to reshore since covid. At the same time it has begun drive to remilitarize itself. This means more heavy industry and all of it local. There is brewing conflict across continents. India and Pakistan, Red sea region, South China sea. The list goes on and on. It's time to accept it. The world has moved…

> The world is deglobalizing.

We have had thousands of years of globalising. The trend has always been towards a more connected world. I strongly suspect the current Trump movement (and to an extent brexit depending on which brexit version you chose to listen to) will be blips in that continued trend. That is because it doesn't make sense for there to be 200 countries all experts in microchip manufacturing and banana growing.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#150

Post by quickthrowman »

soared wrote: post #99
decimalenough wrote: post #88

I'm generally an AI skeptic, but it seems awfully early to make this call. Aside from the obvious frontline support, artist, junior coder etc, a whole bunch of white collar "pay me for advice on X" jobs (dietician, financial advice, tax agent, etc), where the advice follows set patterns only mildly tailored for the recipient, seem to be severely at risk. Example: I recently used Gemini for some tax advice that would…

Similairly, while not perfect I use AI to help redesign my landscaping by uploading a picture of my yard and having it come up with different options. Also took a picture of my tire while at the garage and asked it if I really needed new tires or not. Took a picture of my sprinkler box and had it figure out what was going on. Potentially all situations where I would’ve paid (or paid more than I already was) a local l…

> Also took a picture of my tire while at the garage and asked it if I really needed new tires or not.

You can use a penny and your eyeballs to assess this, and all it costs is $0.01

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