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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

#41

Post by [deleted] »

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...

[deleted]

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

#42

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jordanb wrote: post #13
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is, if true, a fundamental shift in the value of labor. There really isn’t a non-Luddite way to save these jobs without destroying American tech’s productivity. That said, I’m still sceptical it isn’t simply a reflection of an overproduction of engineers and a broader economic slowdown.

Yeah I agree that outsourcing and oversupply are the real culprits and AI is a smoke screen. The outcome is the same though.

> outcome is the same though

Not really. If it’s overproduction, the solution is tighter standards at universities (and students exercising more discretion around which programmes they enroll in). If it’s overproduction and/or outsourcing, the solutions include labour organisation and, under this administration, immigration curbs and possibly services tariffs.

Either way, if it’s not AI the trend isn’t secular—it should eventually revert. This isn’t a story of junior coding roles being fucked, but one of an unlucky (and possibly poorly planning and misinformed) cohort.

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

#44

Post by wslh »

Short-term, discrete numbers like these are interesting to look at, but they don't really tell us much about the long-term trajectory. In parallel: [1].

[1] "Nvidia Forecasts Decelerating Growth After Two-Year AI Boom" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45053175>

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by ArtTimeInvestor »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #40
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.

Is the theft really happening at the checkout?

And if so, why can't we detect it via camera + AI?

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

#47

Post by muldvarp »

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.

> These models are extremely unreliable when unsupervised.

> It doesn't feel like that will change fundamentally with just incrementally better training.

I could list several things that I thought wouldn't get better with more training and then got better with more training. I don't have any hope left that LLMs will hit a wall soon.

Also, LLMs don't need to be better programmers than you are, they only need to be good enough.

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

#48

Post by skeeterbug »

seneca wrote: post #31
BolsunBacset wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

Nah. Offshoring has been a thing since I started working in 2003. There are always cycles. When offshore projects fail, work comes back.

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

#49

Post by tux3 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #40
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.

Cashiers should not, and will not prevent theft. They're not paid nearly enough to get in danger, and it is not their job.

I'm sure you can find videos of thefts in San Francisco if you need a visual demonstration. No cashier is going to jump in front of someone to stop a theft.

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

#50

Post by ArtTimeInvestor »

Spivak wrote: post #39
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.

You seem to like self-checkout processes. I don't. I avoid any place where I have to interact with a screen. Be it a screen installed on-premise or the screen on my phone. It is not a relaxing experience for me.
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