Who needs jobs anymore? We have AI now! Oh and everyone can be an entrepreneur so everything will be fine.
Amazon cuts 16k jobs
881–890 of 1001 posts
Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs
#882This summer I went camping and at the campground next to me was a middle manager at Amazon. I’ve been out of the workforce for about a year, so I asked him how much of an impact AI was having in his role. He told me that he had worked to develop a tool that would replace effectively all of the middle management function that he was responsible for: gathering information from folks below him, distilling it down and re…
Honestly he's probably doing fine
That man is clearly very smart and proactive. I'd be worried for the poor middle manager caught completely off guard.
Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs
#883Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, Ok, I get the disdain for middle management. It's basically exactly like you described, but middle management didn't come about for no reason. There really is a value and the idea of automating it away with AI is extremely dubious. One could even argue that middle management is THE most critical role in corporations over a certain size. In that it is the glue that allows them to get to that size. But it's also wh…
This is most definitely an overgeneralization, but in my experience, engineers that constantly talk shit about management are either shitty engineers themselves or they're incredibly difficult to work with and blame everyone else for their shortcomings. Middle management is playing a completely different game. I don't envy them one bit. Sure, there are toxic cultures created by bad management, but that can be said ab…
Having ended up in management by accident and then just sticking around with it for a while just because.... I am now back in an IC role and I mostly feel sorry for my manager honestly.
Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs
#884Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs
#885This summer I went camping and at the campground next to me was a middle manager at Amazon. I’ve been out of the workforce for about a year, so I asked him how much of an impact AI was having in his role. He told me that he had worked to develop a tool that would replace effectively all of the middle management function that he was responsible for: gathering information from folks below him, distilling it down and re…
I'm super sympathetic that losing your job sucks. I lost mine once. At the same time, what's the alternative? Progress happens. We no longer have liveries for holding horses nor horse shoe makers (not at the level we used to). We no longer have telephone operators. Making up jobs to keep people employed isn't a viable solution to me. Supporting them in some way (re-training, UBI, service work, ...) seems like the onl…
This is exactly how I feel. I entered the software industry right before GPGPU programming was becoming a thing. I was aware of AI and neural nets back then and saw the future and decided I wanted to be part of it.
So what if my job is no longer a thing in several decades. That's the entire point.
There's infinite number of ways to make a living. My way isn't better than anyone else's.
People willing to adapt will always have opportunities awaiting them. The world is rich and fruitful.
Plus all the fun parts of computer science are still remaining to be pondered. The fun of computers is the high of the aha moment, not the coding lol
Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs
#886Earlier quoted context omitted.
The printing press also led to books changing from being something only rich people had to everyone having books. This also enabled the industrial revolution, as books made literacy worth having, newspapers, and became a great storehouse of knowledge. I.e. it created far, far more jobs than it destroyed.
One wonders if a German in 1600 would have cursed the invention of the printing press. The printing press accelerated the reformation, which led to over a century of bloody religious wars. Something like a third of the German population died as a result. From the perspective of 2025, the printing press was undoubtedly positive for humanity. But millions of people suffered.
People are still engaging in religious wars. The printing press didn't change that.
Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs
#887Earlier quoted context omitted.
The printing press also led to books changing from being something only rich people had to everyone having books. This also enabled the industrial revolution, as books made literacy worth having, newspapers, and became a great storehouse of knowledge. I.e. it created far, far more jobs than it destroyed.
I have not heard even the most enthusiastic AI booster describe net job creation as a possible outcome. If you have any details on that prediction, I'd be interested to hear what they are.
Net job creation will be the outcome as the insane number of businesses that were once too expensive to start due to lack of knowledge labor suddenly come online.
Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs
#888Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have not heard even the most enthusiastic AI booster describe net job creation as a possible outcome. If you have any details on that prediction, I'd be interested to hear what they are.
Nobody remotely believed what the printing press invention would lead to. After all, Gutenberg had only a modest goal of printing and selling indulgences. He didn't understand what the printing press was good for, either. Pretty much all the jobs today did not exist before the printing press that enabled them.
I mean in some countries today, the idea of universal literacy helping people is still met with skepticism by some segments of the population.
It's apparently not obvious that mode access to books , learning, and literacy will improve lives
Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs
#889Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Salary is $70,000/year The lowest allowed limit for such a job is around $140k in areas like Seattle.
Allowed by whom?
The H1B requirements are even higher, but also WA state law requires software developer salaries to be 3.5 x minimum wage x 52 weeks per year. Currently, that is $124k+, because minimum wage is $17.13 per hour.
Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs
#890Again, I feel like the general comments are missing the forest for the trees by relying on witty quips about AI or retreading (legitimate) outsourcing grievances, instead of actually addressing the root problem on display: Companies, be they highly profitable global conglomerates like Amazon or smaller Mom and Pop shops, have zero incentive whatsoever to retain staff. None . In fact, they have every incentive to axe…
> Companies, be they highly profitable global conglomerates like Amazon or smaller Mom and Pop shops, have zero incentive whatsoever to retain staff. None. In fact, they have every incentive to axe as many workers as possible, as often as possible, profit be damned.
Every single individual on Earth does not like spending more money than they have to. Just because I hire a crew of landscapers for my house doesn’t mean I will retain them if I think a better offer comes around and can do the same job for half the price.
> I don’t think it’s a controversial idea to impose broad and lenient regulations on companies to prevent this sort of activity.
This is extremely inefficient and opens avenues for corruption, as well as increases costs for policing the corruption.
The far better solution is governments collecting the appropriate taxes and providing the appropriate benefits it deems are necessary for a minimum quality of life. Let businesses do business however they want, let governments provide the public services.
In fact, the US does have that in some form via unemployment insurance payroll taxes and unemployment benefits, but obviously they need to be better and consistent.