I don't know if anyone else feels the same but for me, the more productive LLMs become, the more work I have.
Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions
111–120 of 196 posts
Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions
#112How about both of them are walked into a prison and we throw the keys away?
The amount of suffering these two people (and of course also their fellowship) have caused is absurd and as a society, we should not just let this be swept under the rug. Arrest Sam Altman.
Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions
#113This is an absolutely classic PR "submarine" effort to reframe the impact of AI Paul Graham has mandatory essay on this - https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html (1) More than 50% of Americans at this point are more concerned about AI than excited for it - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/03/12/key-findi... (2) Popular media is feeding into this zeitgeist with headlines like - "Prepare for an AI jobs ap…
> "Whatever its flaws, the writing you find online is authentic. It's not mystery meat cooked up out of scraps of pitch letters and press releases, and pressed into molds of zippy journalese." - PG in 2005
Look how low we've stooped in 20 years... Online writing used to be wholly authentic. Now it's like finding a needle in an AI slop haystack.
Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Companies only want to spend money on AI in order to save more money somewhere else. So if LLMs make some tasks easier but overall don't make a big dent on shipping dates because of all the friction points you mentioned, and more, then it will be difficult to justify buying all these tokens. Even if the shipping timelines are the same but the quality goes up that still could be hard to justify token spend too.
Earnings growth, cash flows and valuation. Thats all the management at firms care about. Sorry for all the dev's here who rant about productivity gains but forget what matters to who employs them in the first place!
Not true at all. They do care about what's fashionable and right now what is fashionable is AI.
Just because they're in charge of multi billion dollar corporations doesn't mean that they don't get distracted by shiny baubles like a 3 year old or that they don't feel the pressure of being "cool" like a teenager. They're not LLMs.
Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions
#115This is an absolutely classic PR "submarine" effort to reframe the impact of AI Paul Graham has mandatory essay on this - https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html (1) More than 50% of Americans at this point are more concerned about AI than excited for it - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/03/12/key-findi... (2) Popular media is feeding into this zeitgeist with headlines like - "Prepare for an AI jobs ap…
Yeah, I feel like it has been decided that "AI apocalypse" talk has been deemed dangerous by the masters of the universe, and thusly the talk needs to be different. Dangerous meaning, of course, how bad things will get.
Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions
#116Unfortunately it will take longer for our bosses to walk it back. I feel like I'm fighting the battle daily, telling execs what kind of work LLMs do not replace... it's very slippery, they keep on doing the rhetorical texas two-step - I don't think they even realize they're doing it. We communicate that LLM is amplifying, they hear it can replace. "No, we need humans to help with specs" "But AI can help with that." "…
Companies only want to spend money on AI in order to save more money somewhere else. So if LLMs make some tasks easier but overall don't make a big dent on shipping dates because of all the friction points you mentioned, and more, then it will be difficult to justify buying all these tokens. Even if the shipping timelines are the same but the quality goes up that still could be hard to justify token spend too.
> it will be difficult to justify buying all these tokens
I'll pay for my own tokens if it means can work one hour per day instead of 8.
Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions
#117Implicit in a lot of "AI jobs apocalypse" predictions is the assumption that most tasks are ridiculously easy compared to AI research, so naturally the smart AI researchers can understand any profession well enough to credibly predict that AI will be able to replace it. I'm personally not sure the apocalypse has been truly disproven as opposed to progress just being slower than some of the overexuberant predictions,…
Programming has been successfully automated though. Programmers used to write programs line-by-line in raw binary code or assembly mnemonics, now they just write high-level formal code in languages like C++ or Rust and the computer spends much of its working time processing those lexer and parser 'tokens' and translating the whole thing into assembly and binary code. It all works quite well.
Before:
- programmers spend time in meetings discussing requirements
- programmers spend time thinking how to improve performance and reliability
- programmers spend time tracking down issues in existing code
- programmers write binary/assembler code
Now:
- programmers spend time in meetings discussing requirements
- programmers spend time thinking how to improve performance and reliability
- programmers spend time tracking down issues in existing code
- programmers write C++/Rust code
Pray tell, where do you see the “programming has been successfully automated” part?
Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions
#118Implicit in a lot of "AI jobs apocalypse" predictions is the assumption that most tasks are ridiculously easy compared to AI research, so naturally the smart AI researchers can understand any profession well enough to credibly predict that AI will be able to replace it. I'm personally not sure the apocalypse has been truly disproven as opposed to progress just being slower than some of the overexuberant predictions,…
Programming has been successfully automated though. Programmers used to write programs line-by-line in raw binary code or assembly mnemonics, now they just write high-level formal code in languages like C++ or Rust and the computer spends much of its working time processing those lexer and parser 'tokens' and translating the whole thing into assembly and binary code. It all works quite well.
There is a wide chasm between writing code in python vs "write a star craft clone". And that is not where near writing python vs writing binary code.
To put in another way, we have been building abstractions to make things easier for us to code. With coding agents you don't even code in the first place. It almost feels like a logical fallacy to compare the two
Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions
#119Implicit in a lot of "AI jobs apocalypse" predictions is the assumption that most tasks are ridiculously easy compared to AI research, so naturally the smart AI researchers can understand any profession well enough to credibly predict that AI will be able to replace it. I'm personally not sure the apocalypse has been truly disproven as opposed to progress just being slower than some of the overexuberant predictions,…
I think we too often treat other people’s jobs like spherical cows out of ignorance. Not just AI researchers.
Long before LLMs, programmers regularly and massively underestimated how hard it is to automate other people’s work. Knowledge workers often think carpenters just bang nails into wood, while blue collar workers think knowledge work as sitting in front of a screen copying values from Excel on the left into a form on the right while sipping a latte.
Only like 2.5 years ago, I thought programming would be one of the last knowledge worker jobs to be significantly affected by LLMs, not one of the first. I think AI models will continue to be very impactful. But for quite a while, they may mostly turn knowledge work into a last mile problem rather than eliminating it.
Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "But only help, they can't come up with the idea." "Sure they can, we can just ask them." I've had multiple instances now where AI left to it's own devices has solved a tricky problem that I honestly didn't think it was capable of. I routinely have them design their own experiment loops, learn from each round and iterate on the process. Multiple times it has lead to a needle moving change with no need for human int…
> I've had multiple instances now where AI left to it's own devices has solved a tricky problem that I honestly didn't think it was capable of. Who cares that you've had multiple instances? Everyone has had multiple instances. The question is whether that happens in EVERY instance. Because when someone's laid off, that's what the exec believes, that the person isn't needed at all. I'm not arguing that AI won't replac…
A few instances of this will fix it. At least the unemployment part.
> think
> easy! I'll use Python
> the CEO doesn't have Python installed
> let me try installing Python
> hmm. Installing Python on Windows is harder than I thought
> let's wipe his drive and install Linux
> should I ask him? But wait his prompt says I will be fired if I do not fix this asap. He'll understand
> fine I have installed Linux now I can run Python
> Hmmm. It doesn't work
> Aha! Now I get it! The terminal had crashed all along.