Initial effects of AI technology on employment look positive • Hacker News Board

Re: Initial effects of AI technology on employment look positive

#41

Post by HumblyTossed » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 2:53 PM UTC

DubiousPusher wrote: post #25

I've spent 10 years implementing new technology into businesses from all over the world and the thing that has killed the most projects at the proof of concept phase has not been whether it works. It's whether the cost of going to production from PoC produces a significant ROI. AI is absolutely changing the economics there. Humans were simply nowhere near answering all the useful questions they had which software cou…

> Now, software is cheaper and so people who couldn't afford to answer questions they've long wondered about can afford to answer them.

Temporarily. Token price will rise sharply when the bills finally come due.

Re: Initial effects of AI technology on employment look positive

#42

Post by pj_mukh » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

armanckeser wrote: post #36

elmer2 wrote: post #32

I'm a consultant and I've already worked for multiple AI companies that shut down over the last two years. I think the main problem is that they all are relying on the big token providers and trying to capture value with various services. At some point the token costs will increase so much, it will put all of these AI companies out of business. Don't get me wrong. AI is definitely useful. The high costs are currently…

Why assume token costs will increase as opposed to become commoditized?

There seems to be a weird self-fulfilling narrative here:

1) "AI companies will go bust because tokens will cost too much" >> 2) "Don't let them build data centers that will sit empty" >> 3) Demand outstrips supply by a lot >> 4) Token costs too much.

This is no different from the NIMBY's that block all the housing then sit in a huff saying "see! everyone's leaving. good thing we didn't build anything!" when the rents go up.

Re: Initial effects of AI technology on employment look positive

#43

Post by Madmallard » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

Interesting how we got frank propaganda on the front page now. Pretty sad. There are no jobs. Not real jobs.

Re: Initial effects of AI technology on employment look positive

#44

Post by WeMustSaveEarth » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 2:55 PM UTC

HumblyTossed wrote: post #37

rayiner wrote: post #14

I hope this results in a rebalancing of the social and economic power of high-IQ versus average-IQ workers. We will need construction workers and tradespeople to build and maintain these AI data centers. Probably even with robots. But we won’t need as many engineers, lawyers, and other people whose job it is to consume and generate bits. If we tax the proceeds of AI generated productivity sufficiently, this could be…

> If we tax the proceeds of AI generated productivity sufficiently That's not going to happen.

What about like a PNG tax for transparent pixels?

Transparent pixels harm the environment because they use energy and don't even do anything

Re: Initial effects of AI technology on employment look positive

#45

Post by msp26 » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 2:55 PM UTC

ngruhn wrote: post #33

windward wrote: post #17

While I'm still catastrophically worried about what AI means for my career, I've noticed that my current employer - very AI forward, and growing the team - is still facing an ever expanding backlog. High productivity is generally good for the employee, unless you're productive enough you run out of work to do. So how much code is needed?

I was also sure to be homeless by now. But despite aggressively trying to automate myself away I'm somehow more busy than ever.

Relatable. Every time I finish working on something, I spot so many more new things that can be built.

Re: Initial effects of AI technology on employment look positive

#46

Post by jryle70 » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 2:55 PM UTC

Ifkaluva wrote: post #8

georgeburdell wrote: post #5

I can’t read the article but in my group, which is not terribly AI exposed due to its hands-on nature, we are in fact hiring extra people into next year to handle additional AI initiatives that I am confident will succeed. In subsequent years, the plan as I have heard it is to let headcount go down by attrition. I would not take extra hiring now as evidence that AI is preserving job numbers.

The article mostly cites the huge growth in blue-collar jobs caused by the data center buildout. It’s very handy-wavy about white collar jobs, “yes lots of jobs have been lost, but also the tech sector always has a lot of year-to-year churn, maybe this is just churn”. Not a super insightful article. The AI jobs apocalypse may or may not be real, but this article doesn’t provide any compelling evidence for its thesis.

It's handy-wavy because nobody knows how it will turn out and which new jobs will be created. In the same way as every predictions about AI bust, job lost, moat (or lack of it) is. If you feel confident about your predictions, don't.

Re: Initial effects of AI technology on employment look positive

#47

Post by pj_mukh » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 2:56 PM UTC

jerojero wrote: post #6

If most of the jobs its creating are related to construction of infrastructure then that's not really positive news as these jobs are temporary, once demand settles then why kind of jobs are going to be created? It might be benefiting other areas, but I think as the technology improves a lot of those are going to start looking like what's happening in software development (which is arguably what the technology is bes…

Isn't this true for "all" construction? Nobody says,

"The housing construction jobs are temporary, we shouldn't count them."

There will always be CapEx to spend.

Re: Initial effects of AI technology on employment look positive

#48

Post by MrBuddyCasino » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 2:57 PM UTC

elmer2 wrote: post #32

I'm a consultant and I've already worked for multiple AI companies that shut down over the last two years. I think the main problem is that they all are relying on the big token providers and trying to capture value with various services. At some point the token costs will increase so much, it will put all of these AI companies out of business. Don't get me wrong. AI is definitely useful. The high costs are currently…

I believe this to be completely mistaken, because the bang-for-buck is getting better. Luna on max thinking is very capable and builds you a feature for 20 cents.

Its just that in a gold rush, there are few winners and many losers. There used to be hundreds of car companies in the beginning, only a dozen or so survived long term.

Re: Initial effects of AI technology on employment look positive

#49

Post by lioeters » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 2:57 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #4

2381275 wrote: post #2

[flagged]

>The Economist, Silicon Valley's primary submarine, dispels the notion that AI causes unemployment because SV has realized that the peasants get unruly. ??? From a few months ago: https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20260516_DE_...

Every single aspect of that cover is manipulative marketing.

Re: Initial effects of AI technology on employment look positive

#50

Post by japhyr » Mon, Sep 07, 2026, 2:58 PM UTC

elmer2 wrote: post #32

I'm a consultant and I've already worked for multiple AI companies that shut down over the last two years. I think the main problem is that they all are relying on the big token providers and trying to capture value with various services. At some point the token costs will increase so much, it will put all of these AI companies out of business. Don't get me wrong. AI is definitely useful. The high costs are currently…

Are you seeing companies that are in over their heads because they don't have enough domain knowledge?

I think that's always been an issue in tech, but it feels like AI exacerbates the issue. I see people starting companies and services where their primary domain knowledge seems to be whatever their AI tells them. It's sometimes enough to get off the ground, but I wonder how long it takes for customers/clients who actually need the domain knowledge to bail.