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OpenAI eats jobs, then offers to help you find a new one at Walmart

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Re: OpenAI eats jobs, then offers to help you find a new one at Walmart

#41
post #11
post #7

How many jobs have they actually 'eaten'? For now, we mostly have AI labs and those in proximity claiming some number of jobs will be obsolete, but the actual job loss has yet to manifest.

Salesforce CEO confirms 4,000 layoffs ‘because I need less heads’ with AI - https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/salesforce-ceo-confirms-4000...

Wait until his customers figure out that they don't need Salesforce anymore.

Re: OpenAI eats jobs, then offers to help you find a new one at Walmart

#42
post #7

How many jobs have they actually 'eaten'? For now, we mostly have AI labs and those in proximity claiming some number of jobs will be obsolete, but the actual job loss has yet to manifest.

I mean, I keep web pages about cases that previously used a human and have now been replaced with neural network models. Some of which include:

- Translation. See: Gizmodo firing its Spanish translation team and switching exclusively to LLMs.

- Editors. See Microsoft replacing their news editors at MSN with LLMs.

- Customer service. Various examples around the world.

- Article graphics for publications. See: The San Francisco Standard (which used it for various articles for a period), Bleepingcomputer.com, Hackaday (selectively, before some pushback).

- Voice acting. The Finals game used synthetic voices for the announcer voices.

Re: OpenAI eats jobs, then offers to help you find a new one at Walmart

#43

There is something kafkaesque about these giant tech companies restricting what you can talk to the AI about under the name of ethics while at the same time openly planning to replace you in the workforce.

Is there? I don't see any contradiction there.

For me it's funny that the first time most programmers ever think about the ethics of automating away jobs is when they themselves become automated.

Re: OpenAI eats jobs, then offers to help you find a new one at Walmart

#44
post #11
post #7

How many jobs have they actually 'eaten'? For now, we mostly have AI labs and those in proximity claiming some number of jobs will be obsolete, but the actual job loss has yet to manifest.

Salesforce CEO confirms 4,000 layoffs ‘because I need less heads’ with AI - https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/salesforce-ceo-confirms-4000...

CRM needs to convince the markets that it isn't an AI loser. By saying it has been able to use AI to automate internally CRM is hoping the market will believe that its AI is good enough to also sell to customers. Unfortunately for CRM, after the earnings print the market still thought it was an AI loser.

Re: OpenAI eats jobs, then offers to help you find a new one at Walmart

#45
post #7

How many jobs have they actually 'eaten'? For now, we mostly have AI labs and those in proximity claiming some number of jobs will be obsolete, but the actual job loss has yet to manifest.

I think a lot of clerical tasks where people are crossing defined things with other defined things that could be somewhat automated expensively before can be somewhat automated less expensively enough to be worth doing now.

So jobs being killed by AI are basically being killed same way that office number crunching technology killed administrative assistant positions and put those tasks onto other people.

Take for example a purchasing department for a big company. Some project needs widgets. Someone crosses the specs against what their suppliers make. They take the result of that and makes a judgement call. AI replaces that initial step so a team of N can now do the work that formerly took a team of N + Y. Bespoke software could have replaced that step too but it would have been more expensive, less flexible, etc, etc. since there's all this work required to make human facing content into machine parsable content, including the user's input and the juice simply wasn't worth the squeeze. With AI doing all that drudgery on an as-needed basis the juice now is worth the squeeze in some applications.

Re: OpenAI eats jobs, then offers to help you find a new one at Walmart

#46
"AI will be disruptive. Jobs will look different, companies will have to adapt, and all of us – from shift workers to CEOs – will have to learn how to work in new ways," she said in a blog post.

We don't have to do anything. People always listen to this propaganda from the wealthy and think the latest gadgets are inevitable.

We can go on a general strike until copyright is restored and the "AI" companies go bankrupt. Journalists can write sharper and sharper articles. You can refuse to use "AI". If mandated in a job, demonstrate that it slows you down (probably true anyway).

You can demand an investigation into Suchir Balai's demise (actually Elon Musk recently endorsed a tweet demanding just that; you can, too).

You can boycott robotaxis. You can stop watching YouTube channels that do product placement of humanoid robots. You can do a lot of things.

Re: OpenAI eats jobs, then offers to help you find a new one at Walmart

#47

There is something kafkaesque about these giant tech companies restricting what you can talk to the AI about under the name of ethics while at the same time openly planning to replace you in the workforce.

Is there? I don't see any contradiction there. For me it's funny that the first time most programmers ever think about the ethics of automating away jobs is when they themselves become automated.

He didn't say "contradiction," he said "kafkaesque," meaning "characteristic or reminiscent of the oppressive or nightmarish qualities of Franz Kafka's fictional world" (according to Google).

Re: OpenAI eats jobs, then offers to help you find a new one at Walmart

#48
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they don't even replace any jobs, they suck out all money out that was previously going to employ people doing useful things. I feel like we need a new word for money going to datacenters instead of paychecks. 'AI taking jobs' implies AI is doing the work , which is not the case.

It also seems like a lot of these layoffs due to AI are just regular layoffs. Let's reduce headcount and spin it as AI disruption! That way we dont have to acknowledge we overhired during covid AND our stock price will go to the moon as they say.

Yes. I see this with my own employer.

Crazy how these CEO are so brazenly and openly committing fraud. Market and investors are playing along because stock price is going up. Board doesn't give a fuck.

USA is one giant casino right now.

Re: OpenAI eats jobs, then offers to help you find a new one at Walmart

#49
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there? I don't see any contradiction there. For me it's funny that the first time most programmers ever think about the ethics of automating away jobs is when they themselves become automated.

He didn't say "contradiction," he said "kafkaesque," meaning "characteristic or reminiscent of the oppressive or nightmarish qualities of Franz Kafka's fictional world" (according to Google).

I'm being facetious, but life in the rust belt post industrial automation is kinda close. Google Maps a random Detroit east side neighborhood to see what I mean.
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