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

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

#581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've made my case for me, if by "I think I should reflect on that", you do in fact mean "[you've] been holding a silly opinion don't want to admit it". The former is a passive-aggressive way to say the latter. I aim to, and encourage others to say what they mean.

All jokes aside, the commenter I initially replied to really should reflect on why their concept of creativity and risk tolerance is so linked with financial outcomes, because that is a very particular association and it maybe informs their worldwide more than they may realise. > The former is a passive-aggressive way to say the latter. I aim to, and encourage others to say what they mean. I suppose you don't see the…

While I wouldn't prescribe someone to sit down and think about why they tie the two together, you are probably right that it's reflective of their greater worldview(s). I wouldn't prescribe it because odds are, they already have reflected on it quite a bit. One thing I've really taken away recently reading about the historic lives of ordinary immigrants to early America, is that modern peoples are incredibly good at constantly reflecting and adapting their models of self, and of belief. I believe this constant reshaping is probably the main reason echo chambers are so effective, and dangerous.

Re: the irony, I don't see it, but I'm happy to hear your explanation of it. For what it's worth, my own interpretation of my words isn't passive aggressive, it's (charitably) pretty direct, or even (less charitably) plain old aggressive-aggressive.

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

#582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh look, another person who thinks engineers are commodities, especially in a field as loosely defined and unregulated as software engineering. They always ask “if a job can be done remote why not just hire a foreigner in a cheap place?” and never ask “if the foreigner was so good as the American engineer why wouldn’t they be getting paid the same as the American?” It’s like they think companies are dumb and there is…

> if the foreigner was so good as the American engineer why wouldn’t they be getting paid the same as the American You should also ask whether you're paying American so much because they are so good, or are you paying them so much because rents in SF are so high? > Covid hits and everyone goes remote, but the salaries only go up. They always go up. Once again, did it go up because COVID infections somehow made americ…

Do you really think companies are paying high tech salaries out of the goodness of their hearts? Like “oh this individual lives in a HCOL area, let’s pay them an appropriate amount” or “let’s share the spoils of this tech boom with our workers! $1.5million dollar bonus for everyone!”

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

#583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please actually understand what pharmacists actually do and _why_ AI is not a good replacement for them yet, unless you want to die of certain drugs interactions.

Hahaha, this drug interaction nonsense is what online people tell each other. It isn't even real. It's like "nice trigger discipline" or "the postal police don't fuck around" and shit like that. Just something that is not true but for some reason is internet urban legend. Retail pharmacists are human vending machines. You don't need AI. It's a computer prescription written by a far more qualified human which is then…

> trigger discipline

> In 2011, firearm injuries accounted for ... 851 deaths from the accidental discharge of firearms [in the United States].

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

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

#584
Reading the paper [1], I disagree, I think we are actually seeing an economic downturn due to the infinite spending during the COVID-19 pandemic. Borrowing was high, and now the interest on that borrowing is high.

> The patterns we observe in the data appear most acutely starting in late 2022, around the time of rapid proliferation of generative AI tools. They also hold for both occupations with a high share of college graduates and ones with a low college share, suggesting deteriorating education outcomes during COVID-19 do not drive our results.

The economic downturn was a delayed effect after high spending at low interest rates during COVID 19. In the UK [2], interest rates were as low as 0.1% (19 Mar 20). Whilst interest rates are low, it makes sense to invest heavily – and one of the largest investments most companies make is in employment. In late 2022 we saw interest rates raise above 1%, then 2%, and by mid-2023 they are above 5%. The largest cost to cut when borrowing is high is again, employment. For every employee, the overhead cost (at medium to large businesses) are 1.5x – 2x their wage. If you’re a big tech firm with 5 employees at $100k each, you could save $1mn a year cutting the right staff down. Apparently Microsoft have sacked some 15k employees this year [3], assuming an average of $100k a year wage, they may have just wiped up to $3bn off of their burn rate.

As the paper itself concedes:

> One possibility is that our results are explained by a general slowdown in technology hiring from 2022 to 2023 as firms recovered from the COVID-19 Pandemic.

AI is being trialled as an approach to maintaining growth despite significantly deep cuts. The Microsoft CEO is under the impression that up to 30% of their code is now written “by software” [4] (are we talking about automatically generated files at compilation, or LLMs?), apparently Google’s code is greater than 30%. I do not believe that AI has yet been linked with job losses convincingly.

[1] https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/...

[2] https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/boeapps/database/Bank-Rate.a...

[3] https://www.financialexpress.com/trending/microsoft-is-filte...

[4] https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/29/microsoft-ceo-says-up-to-3...

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

#585
post #538

Not sure what these guys are studying but can tell you in the real world - essentially zero AI rollout in accounting world for anything serious. We've got access to some fancy enterprise copilot version, deep research, MS office integration and all that jazz. I use it diligently every day...to make me a summary of today's global news. When I try to apply it to actual accounting work. It hallucinates left, right & cen…

It is profoundly bad at accounting. But with a calculator tool, it works okay for math.

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

#586
post #538

Not sure what these guys are studying but can tell you in the real world - essentially zero AI rollout in accounting world for anything serious. We've got access to some fancy enterprise copilot version, deep research, MS office integration and all that jazz. I use it diligently every day...to make me a summary of today's global news. When I try to apply it to actual accounting work. It hallucinates left, right & cen…

Yup, using AI for any serious tax calculation or even advice is a REALLY BAD idea.

A close relative is a top expert in US Trust & Estate Tax law working at a well-known BigLaw firm. Of course they have substantial AI initiatives, integration with their system, mandatory training, etc.

She finds tha AI marginally useful for some things, but overall not very much and there are serious errors, particularly the types of errors only a top expert would catch.

One of the big examples is that in the world of T&E law, there are a lot of mediocre (to be kind) attorneys who claim expertise but are very bad at it (causing a lot of work for the more serious firms and a lot of costs & losses for the intended heirs). The mediocre-minus attorneys of course also write blogs and papers to market themselves, often in greater volume than the top experts. Many of these blogs/papers are seriously WRONG, as in giving the exact opposite of the right advice.

Everyone here sees where this is going. The AI has zero ability to reason or figure out which parts of its training input are from actual top experts and which are dreck. The AI can not reason, and can not even validly check their 'thinking' against existing tax code (which is massive), or the regulations and rulings (which are orders of magnitude more massive). So, the AI gives advice that is confident, cheerful, and WRONG.

Worse yet, the LLM's advice is wrong in ways only a top expert would know, and in ways that will massively screw the heirs. But the errors will likely only be discovered decades later, when it is too late to fix.

Seriously, do NOT use LLMs for tax advice, unless you are also consulting a TOP professional. And skipping the LLM part is best.

My relative is quite frustrated and annoyed by the whole thing, which should be more helpful with these massive code/regs/rulings, but finds it often more work than just using the standard WestLaw/Lexis legal database searches.

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

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All jokes aside, the commenter I initially replied to really should reflect on why their concept of creativity and risk tolerance is so linked with financial outcomes, because that is a very particular association and it maybe informs their worldwide more than they may realise. > The former is a passive-aggressive way to say the latter. I aim to, and encourage others to say what they mean. I suppose you don't see the…

While I wouldn't prescribe someone to sit down and think about why they tie the two together, you are probably right that it's reflective of their greater worldview(s). I wouldn't prescribe it because odds are, they already have reflected on it quite a bit. One thing I've really taken away recently reading about the historic lives of ordinary immigrants to early America, is that modern peoples are incredibly good at…

Okay,so uhh, I think it was my comment where you said that it looks passive agressive and so I just read it again and yeah it does.

So yeah thanks, in the sense that I am not going to say this phrase now realizing it, Not sure how I even found it professional, man I am cringing.

But maybe the context OP used that was really maybe a good roast and I liked the use of this word in that context but yeah good point.

For what its worth, I also don't see the irony. And I also didn't see that it was passive agressive untill you told it and then I saw it..., So uh yeah.

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

#588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a US-based developer I do not feel threatened by the "cheap" offshore developers I encounter. I've repeatedly been hired to clean up after offshore developers who: * lied about their capabilities/experience to get the job, * failed to grok requirements through the language barrier, * were unable to fix critical bugs in their own code base, * committed buggy chatgpt output verbatim, * and could not be held liable b…

I've worked alongside (but never with) offshore developers, often from the big consultancy companies. One thing they tend to do is place one competent developer and a dozen less-so, so that the work gets done by the one but they get paid for a dozen people. But I also believe the managers hiring offshore employees are fully aware of this. If they aren't then they're not very good managers and/or have no idea what the…

The only management experience I've had was as a team lead at a US-based consulting company. It was really stressful because I felt like I was managing a team that wasn't capable of doing the work. I was expected to spend at least some of my time coding, and was responsible for the overall project. This is the first time it has occurred to me that this might have been intentionally set up to exploit me while maximizing the amount we can charge the client.

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

#589
post #538

Not sure what these guys are studying but can tell you in the real world - essentially zero AI rollout in accounting world for anything serious. We've got access to some fancy enterprise copilot version, deep research, MS office integration and all that jazz. I use it diligently every day...to make me a summary of today's global news. When I try to apply it to actual accounting work. It hallucinates left, right & cen…

LLMs basically can't do arithmetic directly, trying to get them to do so is a skill issue. Most models can and will happily write and execute code to do that work instead.

Which drives me a little crazy. Every LLM worth its salt should just... MCP or whatever the arithmetic of any question, I assume the good ones do.

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

#590
post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many weavers were put out of work by textile automation in the 18th century? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

all of them, which not a brilliant argument when you discover where, who and how the majority of our clothes are made today to be fair. I’ll upvote you though because I hadn’t read the whole backstory of the luddites before.

I think you missed my point. I was trying to point how similar the situation programmers face with AI is to the Luddites. People think of them as anti-technology, but they clearly weren't. HN feels a lot like a forum for weavers discussing the hot new automatic weavers and how excited they are for them, without realizing the true goal and scope.
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