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Klarna CEO: Company stopped hiring because AI 'can do all of the jobs'

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Re: Klarna CEO: Company stopped hiring because AI 'can do all of the jobs'

#101

Post by 9dev »

majewsky wrote: post #98
9dev wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know… all the things you mention are actually bad. I want them to stop, for the sake of our society. If the price for that is getting rid of human managers with a broken moral compass such as yours, I’m all for it.

Here's the thing. You assert confidently that GP is acting on a "broken moral compass". But you can also make the case that it is moral to act in interest of the company: After all, if the company fails, a potentially large number of people are at risk of losing their household income (and, in broken economical systems, also stuff like health insurance).

That's just the slippery slope of neoliberalism. The ends do not justify the means, no matter how you spin them: A company will not fail if you continue to employ parents of many children, employ a regional candidate, or write fair performance reviews regardless of strategic goals. If any of these cases appears to lead to the downfall of a corporation, there were much bigger problems looming that actually caused the failing in the first place.

A company is literally a group of people working towards the same goal. The people are just as important as the goal itself, it's not a company otherwise.

Re: Klarna CEO: Company stopped hiring because AI 'can do all of the jobs'

#102

Post by 9dev »

SpaceNoodled wrote: post #91
suraci wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I mean is they really believe it, not just for market selling For example, I know a boss add AI as a factor in performance reviews, where someone was evaluated as 'not AI-capable' for not using ChatGPT. He also asked for 3x output from the teams and said, 'If you feel it's too hard to complete, go learn how to work with AI.'

I'd tell that person that they are an idiot.

They are the "boss", however, so you most likely would not if you were working for them, so there's probably just nobody to point out the emperor's naked.

Re: Klarna CEO: Company stopped hiring because AI 'can do all of the jobs'

#103

Post by majewsky »

ablation wrote: post #84
suraci wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused about why there are so many managers/CEOs who mythologize AI. Some of them use AI as an excuse for layoffs, but many of them do believe that AI (or ChatGPT, specifically) is some kind of magic that can make (1 employee + ChatGPT) equal to 3 employees. I mean, they must have used ChatGPT, right? How does ChatGPT give them the conclusion about this?

Confirmation bias in my experience. “ChatGPT can write this email to investors for me!” cognitively balloons into “ChatGPT can replace my engineering team!” Quite possibly a dash of Dunning-Kruger Effect too.

Executives (and managers in general) are used to delegating tasks to subordinates. I think they just don't perceive any substantial difference between delegating a task to a person and delegating the same task to an LLM.

Most arguments that technicians will try to put forth against LLMs will fail here because they apply in the same way to humans. "LLMs sometimes make weird errors? Well, so do human employees!"

Re: Klarna CEO: Company stopped hiring because AI 'can do all of the jobs'

#105

Post by disambiguation »

jstummbillig wrote: post #55
arcticbull wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They see dollar signs

I find it fascinating how the same people can be selfishly interested in their own finances, find bigger numbers (those that a CEO has to care about by mandate) dirty, and square that.

You find people being upset about losing their jobs to AI so executives can further enrich themselves fascinating?

Re: Klarna CEO: Company stopped hiring because AI 'can do all of the jobs'

#106

Post by jstummbillig »

disambiguation wrote: post #105
jstummbillig wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it fascinating how the same people can be selfishly interested in their own finances, find bigger numbers (those that a CEO has to care about by mandate) dirty, and square that.

You find people being upset about losing their jobs to AI so executives can further enrich themselves fascinating?

I find it fascinating, that we assume that employers should care more about employees, than employees care about employers.

Re: Klarna CEO: Company stopped hiring because AI 'can do all of the jobs'

#107

Post by occz »

jiggawatts wrote: post #85
jamil7 wrote: post #15

Was it ever a good place to work? When they opened their Berlin office the word was the mobile team was a revolving door of contractors doing append-only development on a monolithic RN app. It already seemed dysfunctional then.

> append-only development I have not seen this term before. What do you mean by it?

Probably zero maintenance on old code, only adding new things.

Not exactly a recipe for a long-term healthy code base, and helps explain the revolving door phenomenon previously mentioned.

Re: Klarna CEO: Company stopped hiring because AI 'can do all of the jobs'

#108

Post by mike_hearn »

9dev wrote: post #101
majewsky wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing. You assert confidently that GP is acting on a "broken moral compass". But you can also make the case that it is moral to act in interest of the company: After all, if the company fails, a potentially large number of people are at risk of losing their household income (and, in broken economical systems, also stuff like health insurance).

That's just the slippery slope of neoliberalism. The ends do not justify the means, no matter how you spin them: A company will not fail if you continue to employ parents of many children, employ a regional candidate, or write fair performance reviews regardless of strategic goals. If any of these cases appears to lead to the downfall of a corporation, there were much bigger problems looming that actually caused the…

Why are you switching between corporations and companies as if they're the same?

I actually do know of a small company that was quite badly screwed over by a vindictive employee who hated her boss, deliberately did not quit because she knew she was about to have another child, got pregnant and then disappeared for a year. Local law makes her unfireable almost regardless of reason (including not actually doing any work), and then gives her three months maternity leave too. So she basically just didn't work for a year. She said specifically she did that to get back at her boss, she didn't care about the company or its employees at all.

For a company of that size something like that can put it in serious financial jeopardy, as they're now responsible for paying a year's salary for someone who isn't there. Also they can't hire a replacement because the law also guarantees the job is still there after maternity leave ends.

> If any of these cases appears to lead to the downfall of a corporation, there were much bigger problems looming that actually caused the failing in the first place.

This kind of thinking has caused ruin throughout history. Companies - regardless of size - aren't actually piñatas you can treat like an unlimited cash machine. Every such law pushes a few more small companies over the edge every year, and then not only does everyone depending on that company lose, but it never gets the chance to grow into a big corporation at all.

Re: Klarna CEO: Company stopped hiring because AI 'can do all of the jobs'

#109

Post by mike_hearn »

paradite wrote: post #80
ein0p wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, the thing is, to determine which abstractions are "right and proper" you _already need a software engineer_ who knows those kinds of things. Moreover, that engineer needs to ability to read that code, understand it, and plan its evolution over time. He/she also needs to be able to fix the bugs, because there will be bugs.

I think your main thesis is that "AI of today and foreseeable future is not going to solve them end to end." My belief is that we can't solve them today (agree with you), but we can solve them in foreseeable future (in 3 years). So it is really a matter of different beliefs. And I don't think we will be able to convince each other to switch belief. Let's just watch what happens?

I'm with you 100% of the way on this one. Am coding with Claude 3.5 right now using Aider. The future is clear at this point. It won't get worse and there's still so much low hanging fruit. Expertise is still useful to guide it, but we're all product managers now.

Re: Klarna CEO: Company stopped hiring because AI 'can do all of the jobs'

#110

Post by evbogue »

spamizbad wrote: post #44

They stopped hiring because after raising over a billion dollars their value dropped 80%, they can't raise any more money, and after operating for 19 years they finally had a profitable quarter in Q2 2024. They are in "burn the furniture to heat the cabin" mode.

If they bring their AI inhouse that can also generate heat.
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