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

nytimes.com

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

#161

Post by SR2Z »

fluoridation wrote: post #69
SR2Z wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not more "revealed choice" BS. There's no free choice I'm not even talking about at work, I'm saying that a large majority of Americans are using AI of their own free will in situations where it's not required but is genuinely useful. The sheer number of people means that a lot of them must also say they're anti-AI, and my point is that whether or not they say they like it they're undeniably choosing to use it. > P…

>I'm not even talking about at work, I'm saying that a large majority of Americans are using AI of their own free will in situations where it's not required but is genuinely useful. The sheer number of people means that a lot of them must also say they're anti-AI, and my point is that whether or not they say they like it they're undeniably choosing to use it. I don't think there's really a contradiction there. You ca…

If people are using it presumably they're getting some value out of it which means that most objections to datacenters are NIMBYism and not some kind of principled stance.

Datacenters are fine. They're better than most kinds of industrial buildings, by and large they don't illegally set up fields of gas turbines, and their water usage is really not that bad compared to other large users. They make for a few nice, high-paying jobs. Sure, they're ugly and large, but this is America and we have no shortage of ugly, large buildings.

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

#162

Post by SR2Z »

9x39 wrote: post #142
SR2Z wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. If there is more sustained demand for electricians why on earth wouldn't more people become electricians? Right now there's a supply crunch, but unless you think the US w…

People would become electricians if it’s sustained, but trades tend to have boom and bust cycles. Additionally, you have significant hurdles to becoming one. You have to qualify to be an apprentice, be taken on under a journeyman or higher, and have documented hours to advance. My point was that journeymen often at an electrical shop who have apprentices are recently at Amazon without apprentices because Amazon is bi…

> My point was that journeymen often at an electrical shop who have apprentices are recently at Amazon without apprentices because Amazon is bidding wages so high they (to some extent) abandon the apprenticeship system.

Why is this a bad thing? It sounds like giving folks more pathways to make money doing this work is only a good thing.

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

#163

Post by phil21 »

gib444 wrote: post #84
logicchains wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Meaning a big impact on homes – you know, the things people and families live in, in order to survive. Maybe those people should pay their tradespeople better then. Everybody's all "workers should be paid more" until they're the one paying the worker.

Everyone should just compete with the trillions of dollars of capital floating around for AI? And it's their fault for suddenly being 'poor'? Sounds like you're assuming people are paying pennies for labour. I don't think that's true at all While we're at it, how much should small bathroom, 2 week renovation cost? $100,000 in labour?

> While we're at it, how much should small bathroom, 2 week renovation cost? $100,000 in labour?

Obviously much more than 2 weeks worth of work at a commercial job, since that's the worst possible kind of work you could ever offer any tradesman. Maybe 8x the hourly rate would be fair since it's intermittent work with generally horrible customers?

It's been interesting to watch the IT/engineering classes all of a sudden pretend to care about labor costs and outsourcing/job loss. As an industry they have been by far the most impactful in reducing wages, enabling outsourcing, and "gaining efficiency" via automation while as a class being paid top-tier wages for doing so. There is not another industry more directly culpable for blue collar job loss except perhaps finance and banking.

Only now when the shoe is on the other foot do such folks seem to care at all.

Learn to code indeed.

For any electricians/plumbers/etc. out there? Go get yours. When the shoe was on the other foot you were mocked and told to switch careers, lowballed on horrible residential projects, told to skill up and get better if you wanted to get paid more, there was no future in the trades, etc. Make hay while the sun shines and ignore the bleating. At least this time around the bubble is sharing a bit of that tech wealth.

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

#164

Post by decidu0us9034 »

logicchains wrote: post #77
gib444 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI employs unionized middle-class workers: AI is stealing cheap labor from the rest of us! What cheap labour? Tradespeople are not cheap (especially if you factor in the quality of the work). This just makes them even more expensive. Meaning a big impact on homes – you know, the things people and families live in, in order to survive. Pretty important

>Meaning a big impact on homes – you know, the things people and families live in, in order to survive. Maybe those people should pay their tradespeople better then. Everybody's all "workers should be paid more" until they're the one paying the worker.

"Those people" who? Homebuilders? You're saying you think the cost of homebuilding should be much higher? When I listen to some of you guys it's not hard for me to see why these DCs are so unpopular

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

#165

Post by MSFT_Edging »

michaelfm1211 wrote: post #147
krapp wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>however, it is never explained as to how he waves a magic wand and fixes the many, many entirely man-made problems we have. It's explained in the Book of Revelations - Jesus comes back and kills everyone who isn't Christian (and actually most Christians too) with plagues and fire and violence and burns the world down to ashes. And then (something something multi-headed dragon something something Whore of Babylon) a…

An overwhelming number of Christians do not believe this and do not interpret Revelation in this way. The belief that "Jesus will come back and solve everything instantly" is only held by a minority of small 2nd Great Awakening groups and a few outspoken Evangelical groups, and is unique to theological traditions that arose in the United States. The official teachings of the Catholic Church, Orthodox Churches, Anglic…

Due to the southern strategy that has been cemented into 1/2 of the available political parties for the better part of the last 50 years, outspoken evangelical groups hold an outsized influence on policy at large. Evangelicals are also the largest donors to AIPAC, which heavily influences our society.

It doesn't matter that most Christians don't believe it. Most Muslims don't do violent attacks on civilians, yet they all seem to pay the price either in their home countries or in the US.

It seems world-wide, a hard-right extremist subset of religious believers are ruining things for everyone else.

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

#166

Post by paul7986 »

anthk wrote: post #145
paul7986 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good luck with robots traing to lay up bricks, or doing plumbing in a home.

Ummmm in time it's inevitable as in 2026 you do not need any skill to be a computer programmer. AI has replaced that once valuable skill and will continue it's way through ever white collar job til the robots (5 to 10 years) start taking the blue collar jobs away.

The blue collar job boom is great present day, but what they are helping build is their machine driven replacement.

Maybe this all sounds hyperbolic, but it's what Musk and all the AI overlords have said as far back as a 2013 or prior. Musk and Altman have noted the need for everyone to be on welfare (Universal Basic Income) since then. And no doubt we see this taking shape now within white collar jobs that once we held in high regard like programming being replaced by AI. I just created a whole startup web design, front-end, back-end development, native iPhone app, Android app and more using Codex (previously i hired others to help me a UI Design Front End guy).

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

#167

Post by Danox »

emsign wrote: post #26
cynicalsecurity wrote: post #4

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.

There was a high demand for trade jobs even before. Because people have been told to take a loans and go to college to make more $$$ for decades, there's been a labor shortage in trade jobs for quite a while now.

If you don’t know anyone have family in the trades, generally most people outside don’t even know these jobs exist particularly fire protection, fire sprinkler pipe fitters (unionized), and fire sprinkler design/engineering no one outside, even knows.

If you know someone and you get into it, you can have a pretty good career I would not recommend being a non-union pipe fitter or even working for a non-union company in any trade (except a family business) not if you want to learn and do it right and have longevity and financial security, most of the unionized construction trades usually have educational training facilities thru the union or junior college for their apprentices coming up, non Union fire sprinkler companies are basically like picking people up from Home Depot.

Note: many junior colleges across the country have programs for the HVAC trade as part of their curriculum.

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

#168

Post by phil21 »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #123
unsupp0rted wrote: post #87

[flagged]

USA is not building anything. Private companies are. And unlike regular infrastructure projects (housing, transportation, energy) this won’t really benefit the public at large when it’s done. It’ll just enable companies to churn out more slop, faster, and reel us further in. Or to put it another way, a semiconductor, car or airplane factory wouldn’t really count as “infrastructure”, would they?

The datacenter buildout is just a buildout of the electric grid in a roundabout fashion.

If you are for green energy and the electrification of primary energy this giant wave of unlimited private investment is the best gift you could have ever dreamed for. The fact we are doing our best to squander it is amazing to me.

We have a generational chance to build entire industrial supply chains and rapidly catch up from multiple generations of lack of investment in our electric grid but instead we are going to resist it every single step of the way.

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

#169

Post by [deleted] »

SR2Z wrote: post #161
fluoridation wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not even talking about at work, I'm saying that a large majority of Americans are using AI of their own free will in situations where it's not required but is genuinely useful. The sheer number of people means that a lot of them must also say they're anti-AI, and my point is that whether or not they say they like it they're undeniably choosing to use it. I don't think there's really a contradiction there. You ca…

If people are using it presumably they're getting some value out of it which means that most objections to datacenters are NIMBYism and not some kind of principled stance. Datacenters are fine . They're better than most kinds of industrial buildings, by and large they don't illegally set up fields of gas turbines, and their water usage is really not that bad compared to other large users. They make for a few nice, hi…

[deleted]

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

#170

Post by krapp »

michaelfm1211 wrote: post #147
krapp wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>however, it is never explained as to how he waves a magic wand and fixes the many, many entirely man-made problems we have. It's explained in the Book of Revelations - Jesus comes back and kills everyone who isn't Christian (and actually most Christians too) with plagues and fire and violence and burns the world down to ashes. And then (something something multi-headed dragon something something Whore of Babylon) a…

An overwhelming number of Christians do not believe this and do not interpret Revelation in this way. The belief that "Jesus will come back and solve everything instantly" is only held by a minority of small 2nd Great Awakening groups and a few outspoken Evangelical groups, and is unique to theological traditions that arose in the United States. The official teachings of the Catholic Church, Orthodox Churches, Anglic…

An overwhelming number of Christians with relevant political and economic power believe this. Orthodox, Anglicans, Episcopalians etc. might as well be a rounding error compared to the influence of American Evangelical and Conservative Christians. Might as well bring up the Amish while you're at it.

You might have a point about Catholics in terms of sheer numbers, but... the only people still listening to Catholics are right wing chuds and Warhammer fans - and even the former aren't listening anymore because the Pope is too "woke" for them. The days when the Pope's word mattered are long, long gone. What happened when he gave his encyclical on AI? It made headlines for a day or two then the world proceeded to ignore the silly hat man as usual.

So I stand by my point. The Christians who matter as far as climate change policy is concerned don't care because as far as they're concerned this world just exists for God to burn anyway.

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