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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

#191

Post by conductr »

hillcrestenigma wrote: post #158
bilsbie wrote: post #156

AI is the popular cover excuse for layoffs. I can’t think of a single job that modern AI could easily replace.

I think the initial job loss from AI will come from having individual workers be more productive and eliminate the need to have larger teams to get the same work done.

Eventually, maybe. Right now I see a lot more people wasting time with AI in search of these promised efficiencies. A lot of companies reducing headcount are simply hiding the fact that they are deprioritizing projects or reducing their overall scope because the economy is shit (I know, I know - but it feels worse than reported IMO) and that's the right business cycle thing to do. If you're dramatic and take the DOGE/MAGA approach to management, just fire everyone and the important issues will become obvious where investment is actually needed. It's a headcount 'zero based budget' played out IRL. The truth is, there is a lot of fat to be cut from most large companies and I feel like it's the current business trend to be ruthless with the blade, especially since you have AI as a rose colored scapegoat.

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

#192

Post by [deleted] »

Spivak wrote: post #104
slipperydippery wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self check-out machines aren't automation.

There used to be two humans standing at the cash register, now because of software, automatic change machines, and cameras there is only one. One of those humans' jobs got automated. Call it what you like but replacing the work of humans one for one is difficult and usually not necessary. Reformulating the problem to one that machines can solve is basically the whole game. You don't need a robot front desk worker to…

[deleted]

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

#193

Post by Mars008 »

ACCount37 wrote: post #52
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…

The reports from the usual "offshoring centers" aren't exactly inspiring. It's a bloodbath over there. Seems like the capabilities of current systems map onto "the kind of labor that gets offshored" quite well. Some of the jobs that would get offloaded to India now get offloaded to Anthropic's datacenters instead.

And some jobs, offshored or not, are just human frontend to datacenters.

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

#194

Post by an0malous »

kerblang wrote: post #180

High interest rates + tariff terror -> less investment -> less jobs But let's blame AI

Is there some central authority that’s telling people to blame this all on AI, or how is everyone reaching this conclusion and ignoring the other obvious factors you stated?

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

#195

Post by tonymet »

I see a worrisome trend. On one hand, many of my proto-boomer friends are suffering from age-ism , and memes claim that over-50-year-olds are unemployable. Not 100% fidelity, but there's some truth.

Then I hear about a lot of youngsters struggling to find work, and see articles like this.

Well, who's left? Is there a sweet spot at like 31 that are just cleaning up?

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

#196

Post by fluoridation »

GoatInGrey wrote: post #166
hillcrestenigma wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the initial job loss from AI will come from having individual workers be more productive and eliminate the need to have larger teams to get the same work done.

For cost centers, maybe. If your development team or org is a revenue generator with a backlog, I don't see why the team would be trimmed.

I'll go further than you. Even if the team is a cost center, it may not make sense to reduce the headcount if there's still more work to do. After all, an internal team that just assists other teams in the company without directly creating value suddenly become more productive could in turn make the other teams more productive. Automatically reducing headcount after a productivity increase is like that effect where people drive more dangerously when wearing seatbelts.

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

#197

Post by grim_io »

abletonlive wrote: post #111
grim_io wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are selling yourself short if you believe you can be replaced by a next token predictor :)

this boring reductionist take on how LLMs work is so outdated that I'm getting second hand embarassment.

Sorry, I meant a very fancy next token predictor :)

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

#198

Post by ajkjk »

an0malous wrote: post #194
kerblang wrote: post #180

High interest rates + tariff terror -> less investment -> less jobs But let's blame AI

Is there some central authority that’s telling people to blame this all on AI, or how is everyone reaching this conclusion and ignoring the other obvious factors you stated?

It is in their interest to find explanations for reductions in labor that don't assign the blame to corporate greed.

For example, a call center might use the excuse of AI to fire a bunch of people. They would have liked to just arbitrarily fire people a few years ago, but if they did that people would notice the reduction in quality and perhaps realize it was done out of self-serving greed (executives get bigger bonuses / look better, etc). The AI excuse means that their service might be worse, perhaps inexcusably so, but no one is going to scrutinize it that closely because there is a palatable justification for why it was done.

This is certainly the type of effect I feel like underlies every story of AI firing I've heard about.

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

#199

Post by slipperydippery »

Spivak wrote: post #104
slipperydippery wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self check-out machines aren't automation.

There used to be two humans standing at the cash register, now because of software, automatic change machines, and cameras there is only one. One of those humans' jobs got automated. Call it what you like but replacing the work of humans one for one is difficult and usually not necessary. Reformulating the problem to one that machines can solve is basically the whole game. You don't need a robot front desk worker to…

I do their work. No work got automated.
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