Live data from Hacker News

MIT says AI isn't replacing you it's just wasting your boss's money

interviewquery.com

11–20 of 25 posts

Re: MIT says AI isn't replacing you it's just wasting your boss's money

#11
post #8

Another blog post about the study that found 90% of employees were using AI regularly in their work....that totally omits the part about 90% of employees using AI regularly. The study found that company implementations were failing while people heavily used their own choice LLMs.

I agree. The original report is vague about that as well: > Over 80 percent of organizations have explored or piloted them, and nearly 40 percent report deployment. But these tools primarily enhance individual productivity, not P&L performance. How on earth does "enhancing individual productivity" not improve P&L performance?

If your boss doesn’t get credited for it it doesn’t count?

Re: MIT says AI isn't replacing you it's just wasting your boss's money

#12
post #8

Another blog post about the study that found 90% of employees were using AI regularly in their work....that totally omits the part about 90% of employees using AI regularly. The study found that company implementations were failing while people heavily used their own choice LLMs.

I agree. The original report is vague about that as well: > Over 80 percent of organizations have explored or piloted them, and nearly 40 percent report deployment. But these tools primarily enhance individual productivity, not P&L performance. How on earth does "enhancing individual productivity" not improve P&L performance?

> How on earth does "enhancing individual productivity" not improve P&L performance?

If the individual is more productive, they can work fewer hours. This is especially true in a remote-work environment where you are not in an office setting.

Re: MIT says AI isn't replacing you it's just wasting your boss's money

#14
post #8

Another blog post about the study that found 90% of employees were using AI regularly in their work....that totally omits the part about 90% of employees using AI regularly. The study found that company implementations were failing while people heavily used their own choice LLMs.

I agree. The original report is vague about that as well: > Over 80 percent of organizations have explored or piloted them, and nearly 40 percent report deployment. But these tools primarily enhance individual productivity, not P&L performance. How on earth does "enhancing individual productivity" not improve P&L performance?

Snark aside, this is the main topic of Eli Goldratt's "The Goal" - one of my favourite books. Output of the business is constrained by some bottleneck. Improving efficiency away from the bottleneck is just waste. Said differently, enhancing individual productivity has no effect on the business output unless doing so elevates the bottleneck. Sadly, most business don't know what their constraints are or are otherwise blocked from elevating them due to politics and other factors.

Re: MIT says AI isn't replacing you it's just wasting your boss's money

#15
post #12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The original report is vague about that as well: > Over 80 percent of organizations have explored or piloted them, and nearly 40 percent report deployment. But these tools primarily enhance individual productivity, not P&L performance. How on earth does "enhancing individual productivity" not improve P&L performance?

> How on earth does "enhancing individual productivity" not improve P&L performance? If the individual is more productive, they can work fewer hours. This is especially true in a remote-work environment where you are not in an office setting.

>If the individual is more productive, they can work fewer hours.

I have never seen people working fewer hours due to technological improvement, productivity just goes up from them working more efficiently for 8 hours.

Re: MIT says AI isn't replacing you it's just wasting your boss's money

#17
post #13

Cynically, it doesn't matter if AI actually replaces jobs, but as long as the stock market BELIEVES that it does, then it gives companies permission to do layoffs without taking a hit to the stock price.

I don't see anything strange going on, market just finding out how to properly milk the new tech. Where it is useful and where it is not.

Re: MIT says AI isn't replacing you it's just wasting your boss's money

#18
post #8

Another blog post about the study that found 90% of employees were using AI regularly in their work....that totally omits the part about 90% of employees using AI regularly. The study found that company implementations were failing while people heavily used their own choice LLMs.

I agree. The original report is vague about that as well: > Over 80 percent of organizations have explored or piloted them, and nearly 40 percent report deployment. But these tools primarily enhance individual productivity, not P&L performance. How on earth does "enhancing individual productivity" not improve P&L performance?

You have to factor in the cost of the tools.

And also, just because an employee is producing more code or more reports or more trades or more summaries per day, that doesn't guarantee the company will make more money. If you enabled your market analysts to make twice as many trades per day, you will likely lose money if they actually did that. Because they were already finding the good trades, and now they are also making the not-so-good trades and maybe even the unlikely trades.

And also, in the longer term not being shown in existing studies, you are in an arms race with your competitors. Like advertising, you will be spending a lot of that money in order to counter the spending of your competitors, and you both lose the game of prisoners dilemma, the only winner being the arms dealer selling to both sides.

Re: MIT says AI isn't replacing you it's just wasting your boss's money

#20
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How on earth does "enhancing individual productivity" not improve P&L performance? If the individual is more productive, they can work fewer hours. This is especially true in a remote-work environment where you are not in an office setting.

>If the individual is more productive, they can work fewer hours. I have never seen people working fewer hours due to technological improvement, productivity just goes up from them working more efficiently for 8 hours.

Have you met many humans? ;)

A very large proportion of the people I've worked with over my career would absolutely work less hard if they could get away with it.

Post reply on HN