Live data from Hacker News

A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

nytimes.com

31–40 of 436 posts

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#31
post #16

I would have thought this would be about electricians and carpenters with camera's on their heads to train AI. Apparently not yet. Imagine robots (humanoids or something more specialized) building datacenters...

might take a while I expect there's a lot of regulation around using a licensed electrician, that kind of thing needs more legislation to allow a robot to replace it, I am speculating

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#32
The same thing happened with the oil sands boom 15 years ago. Industrial sites were losing skilled trades people left and right as they went up north to make 2-3x their salary. Then that bubble popped and these folks were tossed onto the street before they could blink.

By all means go make money if the opportunity presents itself. I love to see well compensated trades. But be under no illusions that when the bubble pops (and it will) you’ll be tossed aside before you know what happened. So make money now, and milk these AI players for everything they’ve got, but just have a clear plan on what comes next.

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#33
post #16

I would have thought this would be about electricians and carpenters with camera's on their heads to train AI. Apparently not yet. Imagine robots (humanoids or something more specialized) building datacenters...

It's coming...

https://www.navigate.ai/

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#34

Before you decide to change jobs - the demand in electricians is caused by a temporary massive construction boom of data centers. Maintaining an already built data center doesn't require much personnel. It's a clickbait article.

This is the case with all construction jobs. Its not unique to a data center.

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's good. It also prices out a lot of other better uses for their labor. Projects I work on have seen prices soar. I don't consider building the things everyone hates because they promise concentration of wealth and an attack on labor at the expense of building literally anything else to be somehow a big W for labor because a few people get a slightly higher temporary paycheck. Ask the Wagyu cows how they fee…

There's sort of no winning here! AI unemploys middle-class workers: AI is stealing jobs from the middle class! AI employs unionized middle-class workers: AI is stealing cheap labor from the rest of us!

And in time AI robots will reduce the need for these blue collar workers who are presently helping replace the white collar workers.

Just learned of a new acronym today "NILF," not in the labor force with over one million supposed NILFs out there -- dropped out and gave up.

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#36
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's exactly like that oil boom in North Dakota. There was a brief, massive increase in demand for construction labor to build oil rigs, and you had "man camps" an the like. Then once the rigs were built, the employment dropped massively because it takes a lot fewer guys to run an oil well than build one.

North Dakota's unemployment rate is 2.3%

> North Dakota's unemployment rate is 2.3%

So? What's your point? During the boom, laborers from all over went to North Dakota to work in the oil fields, and for the unemployment to say low there, most of them had to leave. And, IIRC, North Dakota wisely refused to build too much permanent infrastructure to support that population, because they knew it would be transient. If there was much effect on unemployment statistics, it was probably in other states (though I would guess the effect was more on wages than binary employment).

My point is boom jobs evaporate, and give a recent example.

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#37
post #20

This is horrible. AI industry is sucking the economy dry of resources and labor, making everything more expensive who is not an AI company.

Things come to be only when there's demand for them. Nothing else makes the capitalist pay the worker or expand any business. AI providing the missing demand might be the thing that will push our infrastructure industries into XXI century. Because everywhere except China infrastructure seems to be stuck in the 70-ties of the previous one.

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#38
post #20

This is horrible. AI industry is sucking the economy dry of resources and labor, making everything more expensive who is not an AI company.

[flagged]

Are they? Or just creating a demand shock and a monopsony?

Amazon has hired so many journeymen electricians from our area that apprenticeship waiting lists have exploded. If you can assume that happens where the demand is being bought up, jobs could fail to emerge even if wages go up for existing experts.

In any case, the externalities like power and water draw or pollution rain down on the locals permanently, even if trades enjoyed a brief period of demand. It's not like a city emerging. It's a big warehouse that's pretty sparsely employed relative to its size.

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#39

There are a few Data Centers going up within a couple hours of me, it has pulled all of the trades people away from us. I've called around to every electrician I can find online, or been recommended by neighbors, they are all out of town for the foreseeable future. Same with HVAC and to a lesser extent plumbers. I've had to learn a lot of skills this summer trying to get some repairs done on my house, and I've had to…

i don't understand why this was downvoted

Re: A.I. companies are recruiting electricians and carpenters by the thousands

#40

Before you decide to change jobs - the demand in electricians is caused by a temporary massive construction boom of data centers. Maintaining an already built data center doesn't require much personnel. It's a clickbait article.

[dead]
Post reply on HN