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AI adoption linked to 13% decline in jobs for young U.S. workers: study

cnbc.com

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Re: AI adoption linked to 13% decline in jobs for young U.S. workers: study

#31

Post by seneca »

BolsunBacset wrote: post #27
fibers wrote: post #8

The accounting note is not true in the traditional sense. The field in the US is just getting offshored to India/PH/Eastern Europe for better or for worse. There is even a big push to lower the educational requirements to attain licensure in the US (Big 4 partners want more bodies and are destroying the pipeline for US students). Audit quality will continue to suffer and public filers will issue bunk financials if th…

[flagged]

I've always seen it as "Actually Indians", but yeah. That's a lot of what is destroying the US tech job market. It happened to blue collar work in the 90s and early 2000s, now it's our turn.

Re: AI adoption linked to 13% decline in jobs for young U.S. workers: study

#33

Post by brandon272 »

> Some examples of these highly exposed jobs include customer service representatives, accountants and software developers.

We seem to be in this illogical (delusional?) era where we are being told that AI is 'replacing' people in certain sectors or types of work (under the guise that AI is better or will soon be better than humans in these roles) yet those same areas seem to be getting worse?

- Customer service seems worse than ever as humans are replaced with "AI" that doesn't actually help customers more than 'website chatbots' did 20 years ago.

- Accounting was a field that was desperate for qualified humans before AI. My attempts to use AI for pretty much anything accounting related has had abysmal results.

- The general consensus around software development seems to be that while AI is lowering the barrier of entry to "producing code", the rate of production of tech debt and code that no one "owns" (understands) has exploded with yet-to-be-seen consequences.

Re: AI adoption linked to 13% decline in jobs for young U.S. workers: study

#34

Post by coldpie »

smt88 wrote: post #21
orochimaaru wrote: post #12

The study is bs. While executives are blaming AI, it is nowhere near levels of replacement. What I bet is happening under the covers is reprioritization of work, offshoring or both.

> What I bet is happening under the covers is reprioritization of work, offshoring or both. AI has been frequently used as an explanation for layoffs. Before AI, layoffs would be a positive signal to investors, but they'd be demoralizing to staff and/or harm the brand. Now, you can say, "Wow, we're so good at technology, we're eliminated ___ jobs!" and try to get the best of both worlds.

My company did exactly this earlier in the year. It was a blatant lie and everyone who works here knew it. None of the people laid off were actually replaced with AI, the work they did was just eliminated.

Re: AI adoption linked to 13% decline in jobs for young U.S. workers: study

#35

Post by MangoCoffee »

jszymborski wrote: post #24
orochimaaru wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions won’t solve this for you. If a company just decides they have enough automation to reduce union workforce it can happen the next time contracts get negotiated. Either way, there are layoff provisions with union agreements.

Tell that to dock workers, who have successfully delayed the automation of ports to the extent we see them automated in e.g. the PRC [0]. Hell, they're even (successfully) pushing back against automated gates! [1] [0] https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/02/business/dock-workers-strike-... [1] https://www.npr.org/2024/10/03/nx-s1-5135597/striking-dockwo...

Isn't that just delaying the inevitable? Yangshan Deep-Water Port in Shanghai is one of the most automated ports. Considering there are more people in China than in the US, China still automated their port.

Re: AI adoption linked to 13% decline in jobs for young U.S. workers: study

#36

Post by ACCount37 »

grim_io wrote: post #15
muldvarp wrote: post #3

Brutal that software engineering went from one of the least automatable jobs to a job that is universally agreed to be "most exposed to automation". Was good while it lasted though.

Maybe it's just the nature of being early adopters. Other fields will get their turn once a baseline of best practices is established that the consultants can sell training for. In the meantime, memes aside, I'm not too worried about being completely automated away. These models are extremely unreliable when unsupervised. It doesn't feel like that will change fundamentally with just incrementally better training.

Does it have to? Stack enough "it's 5% better" on top of each other and the exponent will crush you.

Re: AI adoption linked to 13% decline in jobs for young U.S. workers: study

#37

Post by muldvarp »

polski-g wrote: post #28
muldvarp wrote: post #3

Brutal that software engineering went from one of the least automatable jobs to a job that is universally agreed to be "most exposed to automation". Was good while it lasted though.

Its the least regulated (not at all). So it will be the first to be changed. AI lawyers? Many years away. AI civil engineers? Same thing, there is a PE exam that protects them.

Same thing for doctors. Turns out radiologists are fine, it's software engineers that should be scared.

Re: AI adoption linked to 13% decline in jobs for young U.S. workers: study

#38

Post by ArtTimeInvestor »

Every day when I am out in the city, I am amazed by how many jobs we have NOT managed to replace with AI yet.

For example, cashiers. There are still many people spending their lives dragging items over a scanner, reading a number from a screen, holding out their hand for the customer to put money in, and then sorting the coins into boxes.

How hard can it be to automate that?

Re: AI adoption linked to 13% decline in jobs for young U.S. workers: study

#39

Post by Spivak »

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #38

Every day when I am out in the city, I am amazed by how many jobs we have NOT managed to replace with AI yet. For example, cashiers. There are still many people spending their lives dragging items over a scanner, reading a number from a screen, holding out their hand for the customer to put money in, and then sorting the coins into boxes. How hard can it be to automate that?

You mean ordering kiosks and self-checkout machines? We have automated it, it's just not everywhere has implemented it.

The one I'm desperately waiting for is serverless restaurants—food halls already do it but I want it everywhere. Just let me sit down, put an order into the kitchen, pick it up myself. I promise I can walk 20 feet and fill my own drink cup.

Re: AI adoption linked to 13% decline in jobs for young U.S. workers: study

#40

Post by lotsofpulp »

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #38

Every day when I am out in the city, I am amazed by how many jobs we have NOT managed to replace with AI yet. For example, cashiers. There are still many people spending their lives dragging items over a scanner, reading a number from a screen, holding out their hand for the customer to put money in, and then sorting the coins into boxes. How hard can it be to automate that?

The hard part is preventing theft, not adding numbers.
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