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AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

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Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#171

Post by torginus »

simianwords wrote: post #119
graeme wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used the word in an irregular way. They meant a decline in software company revenue, not an economic recession. You might well see more software profits if costs go down but less revenue. Depends on Jevon's paradox really

No this doesn’t make sense either. Why would Amazon‘s profits go down if their engineers are cheaper?

In AWS's case - if AI can replicate what AWS offers as a value add - then you migh go with a cheaper cloud provider.

Like, you have the option of either using AWS RDS, or hiring a DBA and devops who administer your DB, and set up backups, replication and networking.

If AI (or a regular dev with the help of AI) can do that, it might mean your company decides to take the administrative burden on, and save the money.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#172

Post by torginus »

ido wrote: post #75
torginus wrote: post #70

I wonder if AI automation will even lead to a recession in total software engineering revenue. At my job, thanks to AI, we managed to rewrite one of our boxed vendor tools we were dissatisfied with, to an in-house solution. I'm sure the company we were ordering from misses the revenue. The SaaS industry is full of products whose value proposition is 'it's cheaper to buy the product from us than hire a guy who handles…

Historically imporvments in programmer productivity (e.g. via better languages, tooling and hardware) didn't correlate to a decrease in demand for programemrs, but quite the opposite.

Imo historically there was no connection between the two - demand for programmers increased, while at the same time, better tools came along.

I remember Bill Gates once said (sometime in the 2000s) that his biggest gripe, is during his decades in the software industry, despite dramatic improvements in computing power and software tools, there has only been a modest increase in productivity.

I started out programming in C for DOS, and once you got used to how things were done, you were just as productive.

The stuff frameworks and other stuff help with, is 50% of the job at max, which means due to Amdahls law, productivity can at most double.

In fact, I'd argue productivity actually got reduced (comparing my output now, vs back then). I blame this on 2 factors:

- Distractions, it's so easy to d*ck around the internet, instead of doing what you need to do. I have a ton of my old SVN/CVS repos, and the amount of progress I made was quite respectable, even though I recall being quite lazy.

- Tooling actually got worse in many ways. I used to write programs that ran on the PC, you could debug those with breakpoints, look into the logs as txt, deployment consisted of zipping up the exe/uploading the firmware to the uC. Nowadays, you work with CI/CD, cloud, all sorts of infra stuff, debugging consists of logging and reading logs etc. I'm sure I'm not really more productive.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#173

Post by ipython »

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.

The backend can. But what’s exposed to customers will be a very very small subset of that capability. Hence why only the csrs can perform that function.

The business undoubtedly did a crude cost/benefit analysis where the cost to expose and maintain that public interface vastly outstrips the cost for the few people that have to call in and change their name.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#174

Post by IAmGraydon »

hereme888 wrote: post #63

AI is already so much better than 99% of customer support employees. It also improves brand reputation by actually paying attention to what customers are saying and responding in a timely manner, with expert-level knowledge, unlike typical customer service reps. I've used LLMs to help me fix Windows issues using pretty advanced methods, that MS employees would have just told me to either re-install Windows or send th…

MS customer service is perhaps the lowest bar available. One look at their tech support forums tells you that most of what they post is canned garbage that is no help to anyone.

AI is not better than a good customer service team, or even an above-average one. It is better than a broken customer service team, however. As others have noted, 99% is hyperbolic BS.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#175

Post by mythrwy »

throwawayoldie wrote: post #143
beastman82 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The investment bankers I know worked harder than any software developer to get where they are.

And yet have produced nothing of value for society.

In theory they efficiently allocate capital and resources to drive increased standards of living. In theory.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#176

Post by gls2ro »

simianwords wrote: post #141
golol wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More middlemen = more revenue/GDP, right?

I don’t think middle men are counted in GDP because GDP only counts final value and not intermediate.

Trying to understand this and please correct me if I am wrong:

A is producing something of value 100. That is complex to configure so B comes along and they say: Buy from me at 150 and you will get both the product and the configuration.

C comes and say: there are multiple products like this so I created a marketplace where I do some offering that in the end will cost you 160 but you can switch providers whenever you want.

Now I am a customer of C and I buy at 160: C gets 160 retains 10 but total revenue is 160 B gets 150 retains 50 but total revenue is 150 A gets the 100

Here is the question: How big is GDP in this case?

I think it is 160.

Now A adds LLM for about 4 extra that can do what B and C can (allegedly) removing the intermediaries and so now the GDP is 104.

Am I wrong with this?

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#177

Post by crazygringo »

PhantomHour wrote: post #165
crazygringo wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are you talking about? The return on investment from computers was immediate and extremely identifiable. It is well-documented, and called the "productivity paradox of computers" if you want to look it up. It was identified in 1987, and economic statistics show that personal computing didn't become a net positive for the economy until around 1995-1997. And like I said, it's very dependent on the individual com…

It's well documented. It's also quite controversial and economists still dispute it to this day. It's economic analysis of the entire economy, from the "outside" (statistics) inward. My point is that the individual business case was financially solvent. Apple Computer did not need to "change the world" it needed to sell computers at a profit, enough of them to cover their fixed costs, and do so without relying on oth…

The productivity paradox isn't disputed by any mainstream economists. What is debated is its exact timing, size, and exactly which parts of businesses are most responsible (i.e. was eventual growth mostly about computers improving existing processes, or computers enabling brand-new processes like just-in-time supply chains)? The underlying concept is generally considered sound and uncontroversial.

I don't really understand what point you're trying to make. It seems like you're complaining that CapEx costs are higher in GenAI than they were in personal computing? But lots of industries have high CapEx. That's what investors are for.

The only point I've made is that "95% of organizations are getting zero return" is to be expected in the early days of a new technology, and that the personal computer is a reasonable analogy here. The subject here is companies that use the tech, not companies creating the tech. The investment model behind the core tech has nothing to do with the profitability of companies trying to use it or build on it. The point is that it takes a lot of time and trial and error to figure out how to use a new tech profitably, and we are currently in very early days of GenAI.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#178

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

hereme888 wrote: post #63

AI is already so much better than 99% of customer support employees. It also improves brand reputation by actually paying attention to what customers are saying and responding in a timely manner, with expert-level knowledge, unlike typical customer service reps. I've used LLMs to help me fix Windows issues using pretty advanced methods, that MS employees would have just told me to either re-install Windows or send th…

> AI is already so much better than 99% of customer support employees.

i have yet to experience this. unfortunately i fear it's the best i can hope for, and i worry for those in support positions.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#179

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #163
pluc wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except AI support agents are only using content that is already available in support knowledge bases, making the entire exercise futile and redundant. But sure, they're eloquent while wasting your time.

I would agree, but I’ve spent the last ten years or so working with outsourced tech support and I guarantee you, a lot of people call us just because they can’t be bothered to look for themselves.

> a lot of people call us just because they can’t be bothered to look for themselves

if the service offered is "support" then why is a phone call less acceptable than reading documentation?

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#180

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

simianwords wrote: post #164
keybored wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Productivity in the US has gone up steadily since WWII (“only work that provides value should matter”) but wages have stagnated since the 70’s.

Wages have _not_ stagnated since the 70's. Nor has it stagnated since the 2000's. Can you provide a source to backup your claim?

https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/19/heres-how-labor-dynamism-aff...

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/resources/human-righ...

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