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AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

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Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#151

Post by simianwords »

keybored wrote: post #97
jmyeet wrote: post #31

AI is going to force the issue of having to deal with the inequity in our economic system. And my belief is that this confrontation will be violent and many people are going to die. The fundamental issue is wealth inequality. The ultimate forms of wealth redistribution are war and revolution. I personally believe we are already beyond the point where electoral politics can solve this issue and a violent resolution is…

Whether or not you are correct about the concrete details here, it is laughable for regular people[1] to bicker about whose job will be replaced first when the people who profit from that are just sitting on their ass, ready to get labor for nothing instead of relatively little . [1] Although I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the people who argue about this topic online are already independently wealthy

The people who profit from it are very much not sitting on their ass. It is easy to dismiss them as a way to reinstate your ideology but the reality is they too are working hard because it is a volatile time for them as well. They have to keep up and employ the new technology appropriately or they will lose to their competition.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#152

Post by jajko »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #109
grues-dinner wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are probably the same people who are "surprised" when 100 offshore agency dredgings don't magically do the app 10x faster than 10 expensive onshore workers. To be fair, the PowerPoint they were shown at that AI Synergies retreat probably was very slick.

I have tried to digest why this is done. It is not because they believe they are 10x faster. It is because they think it will 10x their chances of getting a really good engineer for 1/10th as cheap. At least that is my theory. maybe i am wrong. i try to be charitable.

No engineer is smart and overall capable enough to be called a 10x one and yet doesn't realize their price in western value. And we still talk about corporate cogs, the truly brilliant simply start their own gigs

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#153

Post by PhantomHour »

simianwords wrote: post #107
PhantomHour wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is no different from the personal computer, and it is to be expected. What are you talking about? The return on investment from computers was immediate and extremely identifiable. For crying out loud "computers" are literally named after the people whose work they automated. With Personal Computers the pitch is similarly immediate. It's trivial to point at what labour VisiCalc automated & improved. The gains a…

I highly doubt that the return in investment was seen immediately for personal computers. Do you have any evidence? Can you show me a company that adopted personal computers and immediately increased its profits? I’ll change my mind.

I'm sorry but you're asking me here to dig up decades old data to justify my claim that "The spreadsheet software has an immediately identifiable ROI".

I am not going to do that. If you won't take it at my word that "computer doing a worksheet's of calculations automatically" is faster & less error-prone than "a human [with electronic calculator] doing that by hand", then that's a you problem.

An apple II cost $1300. VisiCalc cost $200. An accountant in that time would've cost ~10x that annually and would either spend quite a bit more than 10% doing the rote work, or hire dedicated people for it.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#154

Post by simianwords »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #148
simianwords wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first and last points are egregiously incorrect. A simple google search will tell you this. Extreme poverty throughout the world has dramatically reduced. In Western Europe it came down from 50% to less than 1% through the 20th century. India brought it down dramatically and is continuing to do it. A simple Wikipedia search can tell you this. Wages has been increasing in china, India as well as USA after account…

I'm genuinely glad for the people in India. But that progress doesn't reduce the feeling of inequality here in the U.S. Dismissing people with arguments doesn't work either. It doesn’t eliminate the feeling of inequality or change people's perspective about absolute vs relative wealth. Why? Because the promise used to justify labor - that hard work will be rewarded - was deeply believed. The contradiction becomes vis…

This is not the appropriate way to respond when the poster was clearly incorrect in their main points. Dismissing people with arguments is the rational thing to do.

Your first mistake is thinking hard work matters. No it doesn't and it shouldn't. Only work that provides value should matter - you don't deserve more money just for working 10x hard but when it doesn't matter to anyone.

Your entire comment hinges on a zero sum line of thinking and I don't abide by it. Things have improved for everyone as I have said above but I also acknowledged that inequality is increasing. Inequality rising is a real issue.. it can be tackled but lets first acknowledge that prosperity has increased for pretty much everyone in the world.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#155

Post by sitzkrieg »

notyourwork wrote: post #28

I can see this. We employ a lot of off shore for what we call support engineering. Things like jdk upgrades or cert updates. It’s grunt work that lets higher paid engineers utilize their time on business value work. As AI continues to grow in scope, it will surely commandeer much of this. Employing a human is more expensive when compared to compute for these tasks at a certain scale.

i worked for a company that did this. then they opened an office in india and put us employees on call for india to squeeze em out haha

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#156

Post by hombre_fatal »

themaninthedark wrote: post #149
hombre_fatal wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. When I commented, the sentence I quoted was the final sentence of their comment essentially leaving it more abstract. Though my comment barely interacts with their point anyways.

Sorry. I was typing, got distracted and submitted before I meant to. I thought I had edited pretty quickly, normally I put an edit tag if I think too much time had elapsed.

I was just blaming it on that. In reality my comment was making a trivial claim rather than a good observation.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#157

Post by simianwords »

PhantomHour wrote: post #153
simianwords wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly doubt that the return in investment was seen immediately for personal computers. Do you have any evidence? Can you show me a company that adopted personal computers and immediately increased its profits? I’ll change my mind.

I'm sorry but you're asking me here to dig up decades old data to justify my claim that "The spreadsheet software has an immediately identifiable ROI". I am not going to do that. If you won't take it at my word that "computer doing a worksheet's of calculations automatically" is faster & less error-prone than "a human [with electronic calculator] doing that by hand", then that's a you problem. An apple II cost $1300.…

>If you won't take it at my word that "computer doing a worksheet's of calculations automatically" is faster & less error-prone than "a human [with electronic calculator] doing that by hand", then that's a you problem.

Reality is complicated and messy. There are many hurdles to overcome, many people to convince and many logistics to handle. You can't just replace accountants with computers - it takes time. You can understand why I find it hard to believe that a huge jump like the one with software can take time as well.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#158

Post by sedawkgrep »

gruez wrote: post #115
bilsbie wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great but most customer support is actually designed as a “speed bump” for customers. Cancel account- have them call someone. Withdraw too much - make it a phone call. Change their last name? - that would overwhelm our software, let’s have our operator do that after they call in. Etc.

>Change their last name? - that would overwhelm our software, let’s have our operator do that after they call in. That doesn't make much sense. Either your system can handle it or it can't. Putting a support agent in front isn't going to change that.

I think you missed the point of the parent. All these things are speed bumps and the "reasons" for having them are mostly incidental, as the main reason is to avoid the expense of having any more customer support personnel / infrastructure than is absolutely necessary to function.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#159

Post by keybored »

simianwords wrote: post #151
keybored wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not you are correct about the concrete details here, it is laughable for regular people[1] to bicker about whose job will be replaced first when the people who profit from that are just sitting on their ass, ready to get labor for nothing instead of relatively little . [1] Although I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the people who argue about this topic online are already independently wealthy

The people who profit from it are very much not sitting on their ass. It is easy to dismiss them as a way to reinstate your ideology but the reality is they too are working hard because it is a volatile time for them as well. They have to keep up and employ the new technology appropriately or they will lose to their competition.

You’re right. They are working in the sense that they are competing with others to come out as the top parasites. Not to mention that working against laborers takes effort as well. But they are not working in the sense that people bicker about AI “taking jobs”; providing useful labor.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#160

Post by simianwords »

keybored wrote: post #159
simianwords wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who profit from it are very much not sitting on their ass. It is easy to dismiss them as a way to reinstate your ideology but the reality is they too are working hard because it is a volatile time for them as well. They have to keep up and employ the new technology appropriately or they will lose to their competition.

You’re right. They are working in the sense that they are competing with others to come out as the top parasites. Not to mention that working against laborers takes effort as well. But they are not working in the sense that people bicker about AI “taking jobs”; providing useful labor.

Competing against others to come out at the top _is_ useful labor. The best one wins usually and as a consumer you want the best products to come on top.
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