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

theregister.com

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

#51

Post by muldvarp »

scott_w wrote: post #47
muldvarp wrote: post #43

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 don't see why it would be "kafkaesque" either.

In fact I fail to see any connection between those two facts other than that both are decisions to allow or not allow something to happen by OpenAI.

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

#53

Post by ryanackley »

muldvarp wrote: post #43
ryanackley wrote: post #38

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.

It's not a comment on the ethics of replacing jobs but the hypocrisy of companies using "ethics" as reasoning for restricting content.

They are pursuing profits. Their ethical focus is essentially a form of theater.

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

#54

Post by conartist6 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #20
x187463 wrote: 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.

It’s going to ramp. I have a team where 60% of the staff (6/10) is retiring in a year. Their function is around reconciling utilization and bills from multiple related suppliers with different internal stakeholders. They do a bunch of analysis and work with the internal stakeholders to optimize or migrate spend. It is high ROI for us, and the issue is both finding people with the right analytical and presentation ski…

Except that we know that even if you can't put your finger on what it is right now, there's something in the way of "ChatGPT just literally prints money" being at all realistic. It's pretty obvious in the markets if anyone has figured out a repeatable strategy for printing money.

This is to say that we know from looking at outcomes over the long term that the kinds of concrete gains you're describing are offset by subtler kinds of losses which most likely you would struggle to describe as decimal numbers but which are equally real in their impact on your business.

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

#55

Post by torginus »

nilkn wrote: post #29
x187463 wrote: 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.

It's rarely (maybe never) a direct one-to-one elimination of jobs. Most attempts to replace a single complete human job with an AI agent are not successful (and large companies, generally, aren't even attempting that). Rather, the phenomenon is more like a diffuse productivity gain across a large team or organization that results in a smaller headcount need over time as its final net effect. In practice, this materia…

I mean one of the services at work had a custom HTML dashboard. We eliminated it and replaced it with Grafana.

I worked on both - my skillset went from coding pretty bar charts in SVG + Javascript to configuring Grafana, Dockerfiles and Terraform templates.

There's very little overlap between the two, other than general geekiness, but thanks I'm still doing OK.

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

#56

Post by threetonesun »

dathinab wrote: post #40
mattacular wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anybody really believe that SalesForce of all companies has successfully replaced 4000 real and necessary jobs with AI? Or is that more likely just an excuse to justify more layoffs in the tech industry for the usual reasons.

tbh. for companies like SalesForce I always assume they have a lot of bloated unnecessary jobs which are done well enough by the people having them to needing a external reason to firing them in addition SalesForce grew in employment size in 2025 AFIK and 4000 jobs are for them only around ~~5%, which means it's to small to be a meaningful metric if you don't fully trust what their press department does (and you shou…

During the just-post-pandemic hiring spree I remember talking to some software developers who were doing very light coding in what I would usually think was a business analyst role. Those roles were both bloat that was lost once free money stopped flowing, and easily replaced (or reduced) with AI.

And as software developers, it would be silly if we didn't think that businesses would love to find a way to replace us, as the software we have created did for other roles for the past 60 years.

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

#57

Post by bgwalter »

muldvarp wrote: post #43
ryanackley wrote: post #38

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.

The number of bullshit jobs has been growing since the Internet, and programmers have facilitated them by adding unnecessary complexity.

This time the purported capabilities of "AI" are a direct attack on thinking. Outsourcing thinking is creepy and turns humans into biorobots. It is different from robotic welding in an assembly line.

Even if new bullshit jobs are created, the work will just be that of a human photocopier.

[All this is written under the assumption that "AI" works, which it does not but which is the premise assumed by the persons quoted in the Register article.]

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

#58

Post by ActionHank »

muldvarp wrote: post #43
ryanackley wrote: post #38

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.

I think many of us question the ethics of lying to sell a product that cannot deliver what you are promising.

All the good devs that I know aren't worried about losing their jobs, they are happy there is a shortcut through boilerplate and documentation. They are also equally unhappy about having to talk management, who know very little about the world of dev, off the ledge as they are getting ready to jump off with their AI wings that will fail.

Finally, the original point was about censorship and controlling of information, not automating jobs.

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

#59

Post by j1000 »

bgwalter wrote: post #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.…

Finally some common sense here. This is exactly my thoughts, how come in age of instant information flow people cannot gather together under one idea. How French Revolution could happen without Messenger and WhatsUp? People had to walk and talk about idea.

AI CEOs are talking like they are oracles but they just need to please stakeholders.

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

#60

Post by muldvarp »

ryanackley wrote: post #53
muldvarp wrote: post #43

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.

It's not a comment on the ethics of replacing jobs but the hypocrisy of companies using "ethics" as reasoning for restricting content. They are pursuing profits. Their ethical focus is essentially a form of theater.

Then why are you even talking about the replacement of jobs?
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