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

businessinsider.com

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

#121

Post by constantcrying »

paradite wrote: post #66
m00x wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah the junior dev starry-eyed mindset. Doing web dev isn't the only thing in the world. AI will absolutely accelerate development, but we still need so much more modernization across all industries. We still have factories running on Windows NT with software made in the 80s. We have mines, lumberyards, farms, retail, parking, bio labs, etc. So many things need to be upgraded to the same standard as big tech is, but h…

I have to clarify that my statement don't apply to software engineers who are not working in tech companies or tech industries. I usually call them IT instead of tech. Wrote more in my blog post: https://16x.engineer/2022/08/23/it-vs-tech.html I have no knowledge of other industries that software is not the primary product.

The word "tech industry" is one of the more hilarious terms. Sure, some startup with a website and App, is "technology", but aircrafts, cars, rockets, heavy machinery (which all make heavy use of complex software, with rigorous safety constraints and which all involve ongoing academic research, as well as extremely detailed Design processes) is not "technology".

Truly one of the more grandiose terms people in the software industry use to describe themselves. Same with every single person calling themselves an engineer, something which in many countries would be illegal.

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

#122

Post by ToDougie »

suraci wrote: post #67
ablation wrote: post #20

Nearly every CEO I’ve talked to in the past three months (only a handful, admittedly) has said something along these lines, if not quite as extreme. They genuinely believed the current state of the art is polished and powerful enough to replace huge swathes of coders, designers, writers, etc. leaving only a middle-management supervisory layer and some lower-level grunts to herd the bots. Or it’s a good PR ruse to sca…

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?

I keep seeing great coders losing their jobs and I'm wondering why you would fire someone who has been given superpowers (allegedly). AI is a force multiplier. If you have 1,000 workers, they should now be able to produce at the rate of 10,000. (OK, maybe more like 1,500.) If you have a clear vision from the top, you will be able to hit your goals ten times sooner.

Let's say company A is planning on releasing product X to the market in FY25, product Y in FY27, and product Z, in FY30. Well, now you should be able to marshal your resources and release all three products on an expedited schedule.

Obviously this is reductive, but it seems like the best companies are going to use this new tool in their toolkit to dominate, and bad companies are going to get crushed. AI is not a panacea, just yet. But it sounds so confusing to me to hear "We invented jet engines which are superior to prop engines, so we're firing a bunch of our pilots."

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

#123

Post by numpad0 »

misswaterfairy wrote: post #113
gyre007 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most ironic thing is thar the middle managers are somehow surviving this. So far, anyway, but I think they’ll be found too sooner or latet

If they're replacing all of their staff with AI, why do they need so many middle managers to manage staff that no longer exist at the company? It often seems that AI 'will replace middle managers' though it would be more likely that middle managers would be made redundant, given a lack of people to 'manage'.

Because they have lower say-do ratio than employees below them. There's a sign or exponent error in current reward system of modern societies somewhere.

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

#124

Post by smcnally »

m00x wrote: post #53
rapsey wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like 20 years ago when everyone was moving IT to India.

Boeing all over again

Among the frightening parts of that is the time and human lives it has taken between Boeing destroying its engineering culture and starting to pay the price for that destruction.

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

#125

Post by aerhardt »

suraci wrote: post #67
ablation wrote: post #20

Nearly every CEO I’ve talked to in the past three months (only a handful, admittedly) has said something along these lines, if not quite as extreme. They genuinely believed the current state of the art is polished and powerful enough to replace huge swathes of coders, designers, writers, etc. leaving only a middle-management supervisory layer and some lower-level grunts to herd the bots. Or it’s a good PR ruse to sca…

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?

> I mean, they must have used ChatGPT, right? How does ChatGPT give them the conclusion about this?

Some of them, barely.

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

#126

Post by polishdude20 »

suraci wrote: post #67
ablation wrote: post #20

Nearly every CEO I’ve talked to in the past three months (only a handful, admittedly) has said something along these lines, if not quite as extreme. They genuinely believed the current state of the art is polished and powerful enough to replace huge swathes of coders, designers, writers, etc. leaving only a middle-management supervisory layer and some lower-level grunts to herd the bots. Or it’s a good PR ruse to sca…

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?

Their investors are heavily invested in AI and are applying pressure / guidance to have their other companies use it to boost the value of their AI investments.

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

#127

Post by sn9 »

misswaterfairy wrote: post #114
ablation wrote: post #20

Nearly every CEO I’ve talked to in the past three months (only a handful, admittedly) has said something along these lines, if not quite as extreme. They genuinely believed the current state of the art is polished and powerful enough to replace huge swathes of coders, designers, writers, etc. leaving only a middle-management supervisory layer and some lower-level grunts to herd the bots. Or it’s a good PR ruse to sca…

Hot take: this will eventually be the downfall of AI/burst the AI bubble, when businesses all over finally realise that 'AI-ing' their workforce was a mistake that cost them dearly, and need to re-employ almost the same number of staff to do what they're in business for. One hopes at least, anyway...

Could be a market opportunity as old incumbents blow up after they get rid of all domain experts and have undebuggable unfixable unoptimized messes.

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

#128

Post by solidasparagus »

ablation wrote: post #20

Nearly every CEO I’ve talked to in the past three months (only a handful, admittedly) has said something along these lines, if not quite as extreme. They genuinely believed the current state of the art is polished and powerful enough to replace huge swathes of coders, designers, writers, etc. leaving only a middle-management supervisory layer and some lower-level grunts to herd the bots. Or it’s a good PR ruse to sca…

For some subset I am certain AI is just the latest excuse to justify bad existing business practices. Much safer to say the world has changed due to AI and that's why you're changing your hiring plan instead of "our plan was bad and we dramatically overhired and misjudged the post-covid world"

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

#129

Post by RF_Savage »

smcnally wrote: post #124
m00x wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing all over again

Among the frightening parts of that is the time and human lives it has taken between Boeing destroying its engineering culture and starting to pay the price for that destruction.

Same with Intel. And once the culture is rotten, things will be very hard to change.

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

#130

Post by RF_Savage »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #117
mike_hearn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wor…

Where did this happen? Typically the government covers some or all of the parental leave costs where it is mandated, and while a company can't fire her they are allowed to hire someone to do the job in the meantime with the money they would have paid her. It's obviously not ideal but it's hard to imagine it is screwing the company over all THAT badly.

In Finland parental leave is not fully covered by the government. So you get to pay both the original worker and their temporary replacement.
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