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What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

siepr.stanford.edu

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Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#61

Post by Avicebron »

simonw wrote: post #60
Avicebron wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this genuine concern or is it stealth-marketing? It's hard to tell when someone is so publicly benefiting off the hype.

What the heck would I be "stealth-marketing" here? It's genuine concern. I do not want to live in a dystopia where AI results in mass unemployment. That would suck, even for the people who manage to stay employed.

I trust you when you say that.

> What the heck would I be "stealth-marketing" here?

Cynically, "thought-leaderishness".

I've been spending a lot of my time these days outlining why we can't "just make an agent for it" to CEOs who read blogs like yours. They can't distinguish a production system from a quick HTML tool from a guy whose job doesn't depend on it working.

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#62

Post by fuzztester »

ofjcihen wrote: post #45
simonw wrote: post #2

A challenge with this kind of study is that coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) only started working really well in late November, which for most people meant early January due to the December break. General agents (OpenClaw, Anthropic Copilot, ChatGPT "Work") started working even later than that. This category of software may have a much more meaningful impact on work than the mostly-chat systems we were using…

Well, in addition to that you also have to consider that companies are now paying (increased) API pricing. It would be an understatement to say that my clients in the F100 range are skeptical at best regarding the gains they’ve seen compared to the costs. This has led to many of them instilling dollar limits or demanding proof of increased productivity (not just output) with the implication being if you don’t provide…

>This has led to many of them instilling dollar limits or demanding proof of increased productivity (not just output)

They should have done that from the beginning - demanding proof of increased productivity - if that was their goal. otherwise they were not using their brains well enough.

And you doubly don't want to work with them, first because they confused output with productivity at first. and second, because they're parroting the productivity metric.

You only need one guess for whose pockets the productivity benefits go into.

10 . 9 . 8 . 7 . 6 ...

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#63

Post by andrekandre »

ofjcihen wrote: post #45
simonw wrote: post #2

A challenge with this kind of study is that coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) only started working really well in late November, which for most people meant early January due to the December break. General agents (OpenClaw, Anthropic Copilot, ChatGPT "Work") started working even later than that. This category of software may have a much more meaningful impact on work than the mostly-chat systems we were using…

Well, in addition to that you also have to consider that companies are now paying (increased) API pricing. It would be an understatement to say that my clients in the F100 range are skeptical at best regarding the gains they’ve seen compared to the costs. This has led to many of them instilling dollar limits or demanding proof of increased productivity (not just output) with the implication being if you don’t provide…

  > So that is to say, if they aren’t happy with the price now, how will they feel when it goes up again compared to just keeping a certain headcount?
that got me thinking: how are companies expensing ai costs? as personnel expenses or r&d etc?

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#64

Post by fuzztester »

fathermarz wrote: post #4

Recently poked around the job market to see what I qualify for in this day and age. Working as a solo builder in my org I would say that I have done enough in the last 18 months to consider myself “with it”. What I found was pretty brutal. Companies asking for 4 years of agentic AI experience… pardon? Then it hit me. Oh they are all making shit up now and have no bar that anyone can hit because they are believing in…

bro, tech hr were asking 6 to 8 years rails experience before dhh (rails creator) was even born.

This has been almost a meme on hacker news for some time. You can google it via hn dot algolia dot com by using the right keywords.

Of course, i exaggerated it a bit, just like a lot of startups and vcs pimp their stuff, just that they do it much more, and they do it for money, while my mine was for fun. ha ha ha.

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#65

Post by andrekandre »

exabrial wrote: post #56

Prior to the weaving loom and sewing machines, a factory might be able to make like 20 t-shirts a day with 50 workers. After mass production, factories generally employ the same amount of workers, but people aren't hand-sewing things. Instead roughly 50 people are producing thousands of tshirts a day leveraging giant machines. Most of HN recognized the "We're firing people because AI makes people efficient" as one of…

  > If 10 workers pre-AI yields you 10x, and post AI yields you 100x, you don't cut down to 1 worker so you can keep delivering 10x.
in that scenario then should we be expecting to see a 10x or so boost in revenue as well?

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#66

Post by fuzztester »

fuzztester wrote: post #64
fathermarz wrote: post #4

Recently poked around the job market to see what I qualify for in this day and age. Working as a solo builder in my org I would say that I have done enough in the last 18 months to consider myself “with it”. What I found was pretty brutal. Companies asking for 4 years of agentic AI experience… pardon? Then it hit me. Oh they are all making shit up now and have no bar that anyone can hit because they are believing in…

bro, tech hr were asking 6 to 8 years rails experience before dhh (rails creator) was even born. This has been almost a meme on hacker news for some time. You can google it via hn dot algolia dot com by using the right keywords. Of course, i exaggerated it a bit, just like a lot of startups and vcs pimp their stuff, just that they do it much more, and they do it for money, while my mine was for fun. ha ha ha.

Wow, fuck.

Literally some minutes later, i scrolled down below my above comment.

And saw this one.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49053201

Which doesn't validate mine, but agrees with what I said.

Except that it was posted about one hour before mine.

go figure.

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#67

Post by simonw »

Avicebron wrote: post #61
simonw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the heck would I be "stealth-marketing" here? It's genuine concern. I do not want to live in a dystopia where AI results in mass unemployment. That would suck, even for the people who manage to stay employed.

I trust you when you say that. > What the heck would I be "stealth-marketing" here? Cynically, "thought-leaderishness". I've been spending a lot of my time these days outlining why we can't "just make an agent for it" to CEOs who read blogs like yours. They can't distinguish a production system from a quick HTML tool from a guy whose job doesn't depend on it working.

One of the goals of my blog is to help CEOs who read it not make stupid decisions. I aim to be a counter to the breathless LinkedIn hype they are exposed to everywhere else.

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#69

Post by trashface »

simonw wrote: post #55
bluefirebrand wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of it is real and how much of it is people just being worn down by the hype to the point they can't fight it anymore Very smart people aren't immune to being worn down over time

I really don't think that's how it works. Smart, experienced developers who thought coding agents were junk for most of 2025 and think they're useful now in 2026 are not saying that because they got "worn down over time".

I was getting useful coding work done with GPT 3.5. I think devs saying "the models are finally good enough" this year are just trying to save face from their own previous irrational denials.

Re: What is happening to jobs? Separating AI hype from reality

#70

Post by bathtub365 »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #37
ballsac wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A challenge with this kind of study is that coding agents (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) only started working really well in 2026? 5? 4? 3? Heard this one way too many times.

Yep, the goalposts just keep shifting. In reality: they still don't work well, unless you're content with producing low quality work.

This is the opposite of my experience since about February of this year.
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