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Big Tech Has Suddenly Flipped on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario

wsj.com

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Re: Big Tech Has Suddenly Flipped on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario

#51

Post by taurath »

ako wrote: post #35
gortok wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nowadays AI chatbots and coding agents routinely assume they need to get up-to-date information in other ways, via web searches and other tool calling. So I don’t see accuracy declining at least for programming. How do those chat bots discern that the ‘web searches’ they’re using are returning human generated information only that’s been vetted instead of LLM output?

They don't need to, they can use tools to validate their assumptions.

If someone has a vibe coded website with bad statistics but shows up on a web search, what tools will it use to check those statistics? How will it know what data it needs to validate? What tools will it use?

Re: Big Tech Has Suddenly Flipped on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario

#52

Post by taurath »

skybrian wrote: post #27
gortok wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nowadays AI chatbots and coding agents routinely assume they need to get up-to-date information in other ways, via web searches and other tool calling. So I don’t see accuracy declining at least for programming. How do those chat bots discern that the ‘web searches’ they’re using are returning human generated information only that’s been vetted instead of LLM output?

It’s true that they are only as good as their input data, but the same is true if you do your own web searches.

I know within a second whether the search result I am looking at is obvious AI slop (search for almost any health condition, recipe, esoteric questions etc almost always have slop at the top of the result), but LLMs regularly source those sites as the basis for conclusions.

Re: Big Tech Has Suddenly Flipped on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario

#54

Post by bigstrat2003 »

openquery wrote: post #28
gortok wrote: post #11

> The only thing that matters is if LLMs with sufficient scaling can become frontier AI researchers kicking off the exponential. Everything else is transient As long as the term “AI” means by-and-large LLMs with additional features sprinkled on top, the answer is no. More likely (without careful vetting by the folks aggregating these models) is that the quality will go down as more and more AI-generated output gets s…

> More likely (without careful vetting by the folks aggregating these models) is that the quality will go down as more and more AI-generated output gets subsumed into these models. This assumes that there aren't algorithmic breakthroughs which reduce training/inference costs by several OOMs. How much do these models need to do before people throw their hands in the air and say, ok this is happening. The Erdos unit di…

> This assumes that there aren't algorithmic breakthroughs which reduce training/inference costs by several OOMs.

Yes, if one must assume something it is generally fair to assume that things will continue as they are. Research breakthroughs do happen, but they are not something for which you can predict the timing.

Re: Big Tech Has Suddenly Flipped on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario

#55

Post by catigula »

gortok wrote: post #11

> The only thing that matters is if LLMs with sufficient scaling can become frontier AI researchers kicking off the exponential. Everything else is transient As long as the term “AI” means by-and-large LLMs with additional features sprinkled on top, the answer is no. More likely (without careful vetting by the folks aggregating these models) is that the quality will go down as more and more AI-generated output gets s…

>As long as the term “AI” means by-and-large LLMs with additional features sprinkled on top, the answer is no. More likely (without careful vetting by the folks aggregating these models) is that the quality will go down as more and more AI-generated output gets subsumed into these models.

Nope. This isn't how it works.

AI progress has largely been synthetic and has produced leaps and bounds capabilities increases in the last couple of years.

Sorry.

Re: Big Tech Has Suddenly Flipped on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario

#56

Post by zuzululu »

cliglot wrote: post #45

> there is an oversupply of SWE and a dwindling supply of jobs which pushes wages down Which is exactly what every one on HN with a working brain predicted a decade+ ago.

decade+ ago AI agents were not a thing, it was only last year when it started picking up and there's less pressure to hire as frontier models improve massively

Re: Big Tech Has Suddenly Flipped on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario

#57

Post by kristiandupont »

gortok wrote: post #11

> The only thing that matters is if LLMs with sufficient scaling can become frontier AI researchers kicking off the exponential. Everything else is transient As long as the term “AI” means by-and-large LLMs with additional features sprinkled on top, the answer is no. More likely (without careful vetting by the folks aggregating these models) is that the quality will go down as more and more AI-generated output gets s…

>LLMs-as-AI can only give us probabilistic outputs based on inputs

I am not completely sure what you are saying here, but it sounds like a variation of the "it's just a stochastic parrot" argument, which is reductionist. The human brain is also just a bunch neurons firing.

Re: Big Tech Has Suddenly Flipped on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario

#58

Post by tshaddox »

gortok wrote: post #11

> The only thing that matters is if LLMs with sufficient scaling can become frontier AI researchers kicking off the exponential. Everything else is transient As long as the term “AI” means by-and-large LLMs with additional features sprinkled on top, the answer is no. More likely (without careful vetting by the folks aggregating these models) is that the quality will go down as more and more AI-generated output gets s…

> The problem for us isn’t that AI will take our jobs; it’s that snake-oil salesmen can sell the idea that AI will take our jobs, investors buy into it, companies try it, fire their folks, the snake-oil salesmen IPOs, the companies that bought into this idea implode in some form or fashion, and the salesmen have already taken the money and ran.

Or, it eventually becomes clear to enough people that the AI companies aren't going to make enough money to justify their valuations, so the asset bubble bursts, the economy crashes, and we lose our jobs.

Re: Big Tech Has Suddenly Flipped on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario

#59

Post by taurath »

openquery wrote: post #3

This is all noise. The leaders of these companies are flip-flopping to whatever sounds best for their current agenda - hiring, fundraising, pre-IPO, etc. The only thing that matters is if LLMs with sufficient scaling can become frontier AI researchers kicking off the exponential. Everything else is transient noise.

> LLMs with sufficient scaling can become frontier AI researchers kicking off the exponential

The cost is already outrunning the benefit to a massive amount, and the predicted expotential is not here yet. I predict it'll always be around the corner, a $1T model won't get there, but it will "look promising", but we'll sadly run out of money for the $10T or $100T model..

Re: Big Tech Has Suddenly Flipped on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario

#60

Post by openquery »

BobbyJo wrote: post #46
openquery wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree with your sentiment (about the noise), however I think this over simplifies it a bit. We may get AI that is super-human at frontier research and dramatically accelerates the pace, and still have to wait decades before it disrupts the job market (or maybe never displaces all work). I don't see why that's the case when you have super-human researchers on tap. There are indeed physical (supply chain-y) issues…

> Use that super-intelligence to solve any supply-chain issues you might be facing. I think this is where a lot of people's thinking goes awry. Unlimited intelligence doesn't mean unlimited resources or instantaneous implementation.

> Unlimited intelligence doesn't mean unlimited resources or instantaneous implementation.

Of course you're right. At the end of the day you need to deal with the bedrock which is the laws of physics. I could be wrong but I struggle to believe we are close to the edge of what is possible in getting the most out of our limited resources or time.

Without atomic physics, uranium would just be another shiny rock in the ground. Sand is just what covers beaches. With enough time and intelligence we've made the shiny rock power cities and persuaded the sand to solve long-standing mathematical conjectures.

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