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AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

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Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#81

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

zkmon wrote: post #58

So, jobs are being replaced by AI spending (not by AI), and AI spending is increasing because of AI, which means AI is replacing the jobs. Did I get wrong?

I suppose the distinction is worth making, since if it was actual AI replacing jobs, i.e. AI that is capable enough, today, to do someone's job, or more likely to increase someone's productivity so that headcount can be reduced, then that would seem a permanent shift and is only going to ratchet up.

OTOH, if it is only dreams of AI, manifested as AI spending, or CEOs laying people off thinking that AI will soon (even if not today) be capable of backfilling them, then this may well backfire, and will be "reversed" if demand is less than forecasted and/or job-replacing AGI doesn't materialize, and all we get is productivity tools, useful mostly for a narrow band of jobs.

Incidentally, I think Karpathy might be right that there is pretty much only one job that seems it actually could be replaced by AI today, at least potentially, which is call center tech support, or customer support, staff, who are dealing with a narrow domain and just reading off a script.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#82

Post by dehrmann »

pants2 wrote: post #9

That's an interesting point that I haven't considered before: that the narrative of AI replacing jobs plus the widespread cheating in school using LLMs is making students less engaged and new graduates less employable, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy for AI.

There are two ways of reaching AGI: smarter AI and dumber humans.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#83

Post by dingnuts »

dehrmann wrote: post #78
Glyptodon wrote: post #20

As a recently laid of senior engineer, to the extent that my job was replaced, it was replaced with offshore junior devs who'd already been working with the company for over year with a pretty rough level of productivity by man-hour, though maybe taking 3x the time to get things done is worth it if they're cheap enough. Which is to say I see my layoff as as cost cutting backed by a premise that there is no value in r…

Hacker News doesn't like to hear it, but remote work is a big part of this. All that effort convincing management you're just as effective working remotely was also a collective sales pitch to outsource your role.

sure but people on the other side of the world are harder to communicate with for practical reasons like time zones and also for cultural reasons that matter big time in many markets

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#84

Post by sixtyj »

giantg2 wrote: post #65
Glyptodon wrote: post #20

As a recently laid of senior engineer, to the extent that my job was replaced, it was replaced with offshore junior devs who'd already been working with the company for over year with a pretty rough level of productivity by man-hour, though maybe taking 3x the time to get things done is worth it if they're cheap enough. Which is to say I see my layoff as as cost cutting backed by a premise that there is no value in r…

Similar trend at my company - we're looking to hire in India to reduce costs. The rumor is that we could replace 25% of our existing IT workforce without outsourced roles. If anyone is worried about their job, it won't be AI that takes it - it will be outsourcing. The US offshores 300k jobs per year with a high percentage of them being IT (60-80% depending on source). It's really not that different to the offshoring…

Offshoring/outsourcing is nice on paper, but as management doesn’t have to deal with time zones, in reality it is much more chaos than expected. And how do they want to deal with fuckups? Thru Slack or Discord? :)

We had British SaaS supplier and all the time I have talked with Bangalore-based people. They had to work in night I suppose…

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#85

Post by zkmon »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #81
zkmon wrote: post #58

So, jobs are being replaced by AI spending (not by AI), and AI spending is increasing because of AI, which means AI is replacing the jobs. Did I get wrong?

I suppose the distinction is worth making, since if it was actual AI replacing jobs, i.e. AI that is capable enough, today, to do someone's job, or more likely to increase someone's productivity so that headcount can be reduced, then that would seem a permanent shift and is only going to ratchet up. OTOH, if it is only dreams of AI, manifested as AI spending, or CEOs laying people off thinking that AI will soon (even…

Spending is happening only because, it promises to replace workers. And that possibility arises only because AI exists. Spending is only a means, not a cause.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#86

Post by random9749832 »

zbentley wrote: post #76
random9749832 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go, h1b hires still get paid American salaries so that throws the whole 'they get hired because they are cheap' argument out of the window: https://fortune.com/2025/09/22/india-government-responds-tru... >70% is a pretty insane number that certainly speaks for itself. Also, when you start giving a lot of tech jobs to people from one specific country, then the github developer numbers will naturally reflect t…

Grandparent was referring to outsourcing, not H-1B hiring.

I am talking about bias in hiring in general. I am responding that the bias in hiring towards this one country goes beyond that it is 'cheap'.

It is easy to make the 'cheap' argument when you talk about outsourcing but it no longer makes sense when you look at h1b numbers.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#87

Post by hobs »

zer00eyz wrote: post #19

This should shock no one. Over the last 20 years of tech, the giants have taken the smartest folks out there and put golden handcuffs on them. You could hire up all the smart folks and put them to work, or leave them out there and have them compete with you. With the launch of cloud providers and (expensive) dynamic scaling the problem only got worse. Think about hiring in the pandemic. Every one at home, with a stim…

The effort in those businesses was never coding, it was always connecting with and selling customers, understanding them, and supporting them as time went on. AI can help with some of that but generally the connections and network effects have outsized contributions in the smaller niches.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#88

Post by time0ut »

Glyptodon wrote: post #20

As a recently laid of senior engineer, to the extent that my job was replaced, it was replaced with offshore junior devs who'd already been working with the company for over year with a pretty rough level of productivity by man-hour, though maybe taking 3x the time to get things done is worth it if they're cheap enough. Which is to say I see my layoff as as cost cutting backed by a premise that there is no value in r…

My company has been intentionally causing attrition in the US by moving to effectively a 996 style schedule. As people quit, their positions are moved to the India office. It is not an officially communicated policy. I have just surmised this based on private conversations with the executives and what is actually happening.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#89

Post by RobRivera »

Glyptodon wrote: post #20

As a recently laid of senior engineer, to the extent that my job was replaced, it was replaced with offshore junior devs who'd already been working with the company for over year with a pretty rough level of productivity by man-hour, though maybe taking 3x the time to get things done is worth it if they're cheap enough. Which is to say I see my layoff as as cost cutting backed by a premise that there is no value in r…

This is my conclusion as well, get the cost center down to good enough after threats from competition is relatively secured.

I think this is going to be a new golden age kf innovation. Lot of senior engineers capable of pencil whipping microservice infrastructure paired with industry experience means startup mill goes brrrr

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#90

Post by mbork_pl »

evantbyrne wrote: post #54
alephnerd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GCCs are expanding in Canada, Ireland, Poland, Czechia, and Costa Rica as well. Indians are more visible, but salary expections have gotten extremely out of whack in the US, and extended WFH during COVID proved to most boards that companies can continue to operate when entire teams are communicating async. If a large portion of interns and NCGs in the US are essentially expecting $45-70/hr salaries, it just isn't sus…

I was making $50/hour fresh out of college back in 2014. And I worked remotely. $45/hour today is not great given the cost of living.

FWIW, I get on the order of $40/hour as a senior with almost 10 years experience, and it allows me not to worry too much about spending (with a wife earning about a third of my salary and two kids). I think I could easily earn at least 50% more if I wanted to work for some rich but soul-crushing corp, but for obvious reasons I don't do that. I guess US cost of living is just insane. (I live in central Europe.)
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