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The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn't coming anytime soon

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Re: The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn't coming anytime soon

#21

All I know is that trying to get a job now is being way more brutal than before. The closest thing I got this month was a scam email from an alleged "independent global senior recruiter" "currently supporting a confidential search for a company developing AI-powered digital products". The made-with-ai smell was all over the place, the company in mention allegedly was adobe, and am pretty sure they got my email from t…

I wonder if we’re actually in like a shadow recession and companies are just using AI as an excuse to do layoffs or hire less.

Idk there’s a lot of diff variables and it’s complicated of course, I really don’t think it’s because “AI’s taking the jobs” tho.

Re: The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn't coming anytime soon

#22

It sort of is though because more jobs are becoming more mechanical. In the past, I wouldn't mind being a programmer but now with all this AI the job sucks. AI may have made things more efficient but that also balances on the other side of the equation: the boss now expects more, and it's much less fun to produce more than to concentrate well on a single topic. So jobs suck more and that's harsh. Also, many jobs are…

>So jobs suck more Be careful not to generalize from your job. The programmers I know do not have jobs that sound like yours.

There's some truth in that but it's also a general feeling I get from browsing a lot of job boards. And I think in 10 years it's going to get worse for sure.

Re: The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn't coming anytime soon

#24

It sort of is though because more jobs are becoming more mechanical. In the past, I wouldn't mind being a programmer but now with all this AI the job sucks. AI may have made things more efficient but that also balances on the other side of the equation: the boss now expects more, and it's much less fun to produce more than to concentrate well on a single topic. So jobs suck more and that's harsh. Also, many jobs are…

Will you still hate AI when it discovers the cure for your cancer?

It won’t. And I will.

I’m not sure if your question misunderstands what AI is and what it can do, or if it misunderstands what cancer is and how medical research works.

Re: The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn't coming anytime soon

#25
post #7

Judging by the IT maturity of most of the companies I have worked with in the last 30 years, my guess is we're about 10-15 years from any serious changes, solely because adopting AI will require a few things. Most are running razor thin margins and wont be able to afford any of this, others have so much technical debt piled up that even if they could afford it they couldn't do anything without identifying ancient sys…

What I'm seeing, as someone who works in a giant company but not in a tech department, is the rise of middle companies that specifically do all the hard work of organizing/wrangling the AI and providing more streamlined options that are easier to understand, with the end users giving up flexibility and freedom for ease of use. (Like the AI version of Dreamweaver, I guess would be a comparison?) Or modern no/low-code offerings.

I've also seen already existing SaaS offerings integrating AI into their already existing product. How well that's going to work... I'm not sure. The economics of at least some of what I've seen is questionable (e.g. giving end users essentially unlimited token spend without passing any of the cost along), and at least one company in my field is clearly adding AI features because they're spooked that the existence of AI is damaging their moat/vendor lock in.

The shift might look like 'company Y contracts with AI companies A, B, and C, and as a result does more with less and therefore needs 30% fewer people'. In theory, companies A, B, and C are creating jobs so the job numbers shift, but your point about a certain level of understanding being needed to do those new jobs definitely stands.

The question is are there enough competent people to staff the middleman companies (I'd say yes specifically because entry level tech is a bloodbath atm) and how simple can these tools be made? Can they be dumbed down enough so that businesses can just buy a package from a vendor where they can give tool access to the people who can't program VCRs and trust that they won't shoot themselves in the foot? That, I don't know.

Re: The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn't coming anytime soon

#26
post #7

Judging by the IT maturity of most of the companies I have worked with in the last 30 years, my guess is we're about 10-15 years from any serious changes, solely because adopting AI will require a few things. Most are running razor thin margins and wont be able to afford any of this, others have so much technical debt piled up that even if they could afford it they couldn't do anything without identifying ancient sys…

AI is different than previous technologies in that a sufficiently advanced AI can "adopt" itself. That is, it can analyze the situation of a company (asking questions when necessary), describe the benefits, and deploy itself. This sounds like science fiction, but is very plausible in 3 years of trends hold.

Re: The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn't coming anytime soon

#27

All I know is that trying to get a job now is being way more brutal than before. The closest thing I got this month was a scam email from an alleged "independent global senior recruiter" "currently supporting a confidential search for a company developing AI-powered digital products". The made-with-ai smell was all over the place, the company in mention allegedly was adobe, and am pretty sure they got my email from t…

Sample size of 1 here, but my inbox is absolutely overflowing with recruiters. Sample size of more than 1 - the SWE who were laid off recently from my company are finding new jobs quickly.

Certainly the job market is more brutal than it was during the covid mass hiring spree, but it doesn't seem any worse than historical average. My view is anecdotal but I haven't seen any real data on the other side of it either.

Re: The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn't coming anytime soon

#28

It sort of is though because more jobs are becoming more mechanical. In the past, I wouldn't mind being a programmer but now with all this AI the job sucks. AI may have made things more efficient but that also balances on the other side of the equation: the boss now expects more, and it's much less fun to produce more than to concentrate well on a single topic. So jobs suck more and that's harsh. Also, many jobs are…

Will you still hate AI when it discovers the cure for your cancer?

People can absolutely have complicated feelings about things that help them.

My life is sustained by medicine produced by large international pharma companies, and I also feel really uncomfortable about that.

Re: The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn't coming anytime soon

#29
There was an article in Forbes [1] that shared that it's not about jobs going away, but the steady creep of tasks being taken away from people and given to AI and automation. The point made is that AI is hollowing out jobs, leading to earlier (and often forced) retirement, the destruction of entry-level jobs, and the steady creep of winnowing out workers making things leaner.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronschmelzer/2026/07/14/ai-isnt...

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