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The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

cnn.com

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Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#161

Post by const_cast »

drewcon wrote: post #106
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not seeing how comparing AI to a virus that killed millions and left tens of millions crippled is an effective way to support your argument.

Humans are not familiar with exponential change so they have almost no ability to manage through exponential change. Its an apt comparison. The criticisms in the cnn article are already out date in many instances.

Viruses spread and propagate themselves, often changing along the way. AI doesn't, and probably shouldn't. I think we've made a few movies on why that's a bad idea.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#162

Post by const_cast »

neutronicus wrote: post #118
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If no one has a job, who’s going to buy your stuff? All the people employed by the government and blue collar workers? All the entrepreneurs, gig workers, black market workers, etc? It's easy to imagine a world in which there are way less white collar workers and everything else is pretty much the same. It's also easy to imagine a world in which you sell less stuff but your margins increase, and overall you're bett…

There are also blue- and pink-collar industries that we all tacitly agree are crazy understaffed right now because of brutal work conditions and low pay (health care, child care, K-12, elder care), with low quality-of-service a concern across the board, and with many job functions that seem very difficult to replace with AI (assuming liability for preventing children and elderly adults from physically injuring themse…

Right, but the elephant in the room is that despite those industries being constantly understaffed and labor being in extreme demand, they're underpaid. It seems nobody gives a flying fuck about the free market when it comes to the labor market, which is arguably the most important market.

So, flooding those industries with more warm bodies probably won't help anything. I imagine it would make the already fucked labor relations even more fucked.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#163

Post by cadamsdotcom »

CEOs’ jobs involve hyping their companies. It’s up to us whether we believe.

I’d love a journalist using Claude to debunk Dario: “but don’t believe me, I’m just a journalist - we asked Dario’s own product if he’s lying through his teeth, and here’s what it said:”

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#164

Post by elktown »

Tech has a big problem of selective critical thinking due to a perpetual gold rush causing people to adopt a stockbroker mentality of not missing out on the next big thing - be it the next subfield like AI, the next cool tech that you can be an early adopter on etc. But yeah, nothing new under the sun; it's corruption.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#165

Post by MattSayar »

hooverd wrote: post #131
fny wrote: post #50

I think everyone is missing the bigger picture. This is not a matter of whether AI will replace humans whole sale. There are two more predominant effects: 1. You’ll need fewer humans to do the same task. In other forms of automation, this has led to a decrease in employment. 2. The supply of capable humans increases dramatically. 3. Expertise is no longer a perfect moat. I’ve seen 2. My sister nearly flunked a coding…

Can you talk about Rust without your friend computer?

Can you talk about assembly without the internet?

I fully understand your point and even agree with it to an extent. LLMs are just another layer of abstraction, like C is an abstraction for asm is an abstraction for binary is an abstraction for transistors... we all stand on the shoulders of giants. We write code to accomplish a task, not the other way around.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#166

Post by neutronicus »

const_cast wrote: post #162
neutronicus wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also blue- and pink-collar industries that we all tacitly agree are crazy understaffed right now because of brutal work conditions and low pay (health care, child care, K-12, elder care), with low quality-of-service a concern across the board, and with many job functions that seem very difficult to replace with AI (assuming liability for preventing children and elderly adults from physically injuring themse…

Right, but the elephant in the room is that despite those industries being constantly understaffed and labor being in extreme demand, they're underpaid. It seems nobody gives a flying fuck about the free market when it comes to the labor market, which is arguably the most important market. So, flooding those industries with more warm bodies probably won't help anything. I imagine it would make the already fucked labo…

It would be bad for compensation in the field(s) but the actual working conditions might improve, just by dint of having enough people to do all the work expected.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#167

Post by paulcole »

idkwhattocallme wrote: post #23

I worked at two different $10B+ market cap companies during ZIRP. I recall in most meetings over half of the knowledge workers attending were superfluous. I mean, we hired someone on my team to attend cross functional meetings because our calendars were literally too full to attend. Why could we do that? Because the company was growing and hiring someone to attend meetings wasn't going to hurt the skyrocketing stock.…

Just curious, did you put yourself in the superfluous category either time?

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#168

Post by jrs235 »

azemetre wrote: post #123
zhobbs wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this will likely lead to margin compression. The best companies will be fine though, as brand and existing distribution is a huge moat.

“Best” is carrying a lot of wait. More accurate to say the monopolistic companies that engage in regulatory capture will be fine.

Empowering the current US President to demand more bribes.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#169

Post by leeroihe »

I used to be a big proponent of AI tools and llms, even built products around them. But to be honest, with all of the big AI ceos promising that they're going to "replace all white collar jobs" I can't see that they want what's best for the country or the american people. It's legitimately despicable and ghoulish that they just expect everyone to "adapt" to the downstream affects of their knowledge-machine lock-in.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#170

Post by dlivingston »

PeterStuer wrote: post #124
idkwhattocallme wrote: post #23

I worked at two different $10B+ market cap companies during ZIRP. I recall in most meetings over half of the knowledge workers attending were superfluous. I mean, we hired someone on my team to attend cross functional meetings because our calendars were literally too full to attend. Why could we do that? Because the company was growing and hiring someone to attend meetings wasn't going to hurt the skyrocketing stock.…

"Hiring someone gave my VP more headcount and therefore more clout" Which is the sole reason automation will not make most people obsolete until the VP level themselves are automated.

No, not if the metric by which VPs get clout changes.
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