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The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't

libertas.software

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Re: The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't

#41

Post by __alexs »

embedding-shape wrote: post #8

Cutting people because of AI makes no sense, you know these people are good without AI, you'd want to keep them! Freeze the constant over-hiring instead, and take care of the people you know aren't lobotomized yet, and train them if needed. I'm seeing so much shedding of knowledge workers though, even though AI clearly isn't ready to replace people, just ready to augment them currently, that it looks like looney-tune…

I disagree. Lots of people are so laser focussed at only the close to the code aspects of programming they are unable to leverage the enormous increase in scope it can offer them.

There is absolutely room for head count reduction while companies restructure around this.

Re: The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't

#42

Post by valvar »

hmmokidk wrote: post #37
eru wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the scale of a company, augmenting is replacing. If a worker plus AI can do the work of two workers without AI (but cheaper), you go for that; and it doesn't matter how good or bad AI is without the human.

I think there are risks: - AI pricing is variable, probably the cheapest it will ever be right now - AI produces a lot more shit for humans to review, and you will always need humans. If you don’t focus on keeping things simple you will probably play yourself unless you’re good at separating out blast radiuses. - I see a lot of super low quality work that doesn’t solve the problem but it’s like look that guy solved t…

Why wouldn’t inference just keep getting better and cheaper as hardware and algorithms improve?

Re: The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't

#43

Post by jdidrirjrjo »

> AI Does Not Replace Judgement. It Multiplies It.

And that is a problem. If you employ people whomlove to comlkain are basically minus 0.1 of regular employe (tolerable annoyance), they get power multiplier and instead of small rants at water cooler, will be able to file federal law suits under employers ass.

And they will also get way more ways to harrass productive employes.

Re: The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't

#44

Post by hilariously »

sumeno wrote: post #39
thfuran wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the entire structure of the business is designed for approximately the amount of work it currently does and likely has no particular immediate use for twice as much work in most departments.

In 20 years I have never been on a team that didn't have twice as much work as we had people to do it. Businesses are not magically efficient

Your experience of how the world works is usually because of what work you have done. You can't grow twice as many crops, sell twice as many groceries, drive twice as many busses, because of AI - fundamentally there's a consumption problem as well.

Many businesses are not bottlenecked by processes that are computer based.

Re: The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't

#45

Post by csoups14 »

skinfaxi wrote: post #17
eru wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the scale of a company, augmenting is replacing. If a worker plus AI can do the work of two workers without AI (but cheaper), you go for that; and it doesn't matter how good or bad AI is without the human.

The point is if a worker plus AI can do the work of two workers without AI, then why not keep both workers and have them both use AI to have the equivalent of four non-assisted workers?

I think you're viewing this from the perspective of someone who has a functioning brain and plentiful concepts and ideas that aren't being built because you're labour-constrained. Companies like Meta simply don't have productive uses for all of that human + AI labour. Meta spends tens of billions a year paying people to throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. If the idea well you're going to is running dry, AI with a smaller number of humans can slop out the stuff you do want to build more efficiently is their implicit argument, especially when you don't care about quality (as is the case with Meta). Layoffs are also being used to tell a story around efficiency to investors while companies wait for the billions they're plowing in AI actually show profit.

Re: The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't

#46

Post by raulparada »

koe123 wrote: post #31

My pet theory is that AI enables programmers to be relatively more productive than other roles. So, if I want to grow my company, shouldn't I hire MORE programmers? Anyone know a good counterargument? Along another vein, I guess I wonder with my limited knowledge of economics if the demand for programmers is elastic or inelastic.

Kinda playing devil’s advocate here but: if AI is a multiplier it makes (now more) sense to get rid of net negatives

Re: The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't

#47

Post by rhplus »

koe123 wrote: post #31

My pet theory is that AI enables programmers to be relatively more productive than other roles. So, if I want to grow my company, shouldn't I hire MORE programmers? Anyone know a good counterargument? Along another vein, I guess I wonder with my limited knowledge of economics if the demand for programmers is elastic or inelastic.

Most businesses don’t grow just by churning out more units of software. At some point, it doesn’t matter how quickly you can churn out features if you’re not solving customer problems and convincing customers that they should pay for those solutions.

Once software becomes cheap, the bottleneck to growth shift to product design, infrastructure/manufacturing, sales and support.

Re: The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't

#48

Post by new_account_100 »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #34
eru wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people love AI, some don't. But the point about there being nothing new in the article still stands.

I don't see people complaining about the repetition of the dozens of daily topics about how LLMs will replace software engineers.

Commenting from a shadowbanned account to say that opposition to LLMs is not tolerated on HackerNews.

Re: The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't

#49

Post by fred_is_fred »

Companies are cutting headcount to fund AI projects, not necessarily because of the gains they are getting from it. And frankly in many companies, cutting layers and reducing team handoffs will be a net gain - even if AI didn't exist.

Re: The Companies Cutting Headcount for AI Will Lose to the Ones Who Didn't

#50

Post by LogicFailsMe »

glouwbug wrote: post #22

Relatively speaking, a company could obtain AGI first merely by just by keeping their critical thinkers while the rest of the industry offloads their thinking to LLMs. It wouldn’t be AGI, just GI, like we’ve always had before before GPT arrived

There are clearly defined tasks these things already do that are tedious and error-prone for a human. Using them correctly amplifies the abilities of humans. The problem is with the C-suite mentality towards cutting costs by replacing humans. It isn't going to work, but the only way they learn lessons like that is, as always, the hard way.
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