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ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

davidoks.blog

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Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#171

Post by jollyllama »

GuB-42 wrote: post #106

I didn't notice any link with the iPhone, except maybe a vague coincidence in timing. Online banking existed before the iPhone, it worked using websites, on personal computers. And it took some time before smartphones were taken seriously by banks. What I noticed however is a noticeable decrease in service quality in bank branches while online (desktop browser) options became better. Banks pushed customers out of the…

That's a really good point. They forced the adoption of these services by kneecapping the tellers, in terms of what they had access to.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#172

Post by onetimeusename »

paxys wrote: post #35

One key line about ATMs is buried deep in the article: > the number of tellers per branch fell by more than a third between 1988 and 2004, but the number of urban bank branches (also encouraged by a wave of bank deregulation allowing more branches) rose by more than 40 percent So, ATMs did impact bank teller jobs by a significant amount. A third of them were made redundant. It's just that the decrease at individual b…

I go back and forth on this. I relate it to software. I don't think AI can meaningfully write software autonomously. There are people who oversee it and prompt it and even then it might write things badly. So there needs to be a person in the loop. But that person should probably have very deep knowledge of the software especially for say low level coding. But then that person probably developed the knowledge by coding things by hand for a long time. Coding things by hand is part of getting the knowledge. But people especially students rely heavily on AI to write code so I assume their knowledge growth is stunted. I don't know mathematical proofs will help here. The specs have to come from somewhere.

I can see AI making things more productive but it requires humans to be very expert and do more work. That might mean fewer developers but they are all more skilled. It will take a while for people to level up so to speak. It's hard to predict but I think there could be a rough transition period because people haven't caught on that they can't rely on AI so either they will have to get a new career or ironically study harder.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#173

Post by rayiner »

paxys wrote: post #35

One key line about ATMs is buried deep in the article: > the number of tellers per branch fell by more than a third between 1988 and 2004, but the number of urban bank branches (also encouraged by a wave of bank deregulation allowing more branches) rose by more than 40 percent So, ATMs did impact bank teller jobs by a significant amount. A third of them were made redundant. It's just that the decrease at individual b…

Correct. The story isn’t correct even in the original formulation. US population increased by 50% from 1980 to 2010, and the economy became far more financialized. But the number of bank teller jobs barely grew during that period, even before the iPhone.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#174

Post by hackyhacky »

esseph wrote: post #161
hackyhacky wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're already seeing large software companies figure out that they don't need 5,000 developers. They probably only need 1,000 or maybe even fewer. Long-term, they will need none. I believe that software will be made obsolete by AI. Why use AI to build software for automating specific tasks, when you can just have the AI automate those tasks directly? Why have AI build a Microsoft Excel clone, when you can just wave…

> Why use AI to build software for automating specific tasks, when you can just have the AI automate those tasks directly? Speed, cost, security, job/task management Next question

> Speed, cost, security, job/task management

All of that will inevitably be solved.

50 years ago, using a personal computer was an extravagant luxury. Until it wasn't.

30 years ago, carrying a powerful computer in your pocket was unthinkable. Until it wasn't.

Right now, it's cheaper to run your accounting math on dedicated adder hardware. But Llms will only get cheaper. When you can run massive LLMs locally on your phone, it's hard to justify not using it for everything.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#175

Post by empyrrhicist »

zetanor wrote: post #166
empyrrhicist wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> online banking will no longer work on Linux How? Across multiple browsers? > I think Android and iOS are safer platforms than PCs and that's why banks want you to use your phone. This statement fills me with revulsion and rage lol. The only real "safety" involved here is the removal of user agency. I have a lot more trust in a machine I can actually control, secure, and monitor than the black box walled-garden of p…

Your bank's insurer trusts Google's security more than yours, and they must surely (and rightfully) believe that while Google would spy on you, they wouldn't steal your bank account.

That's a much more precise and accurate way to describe the situation.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#176

Post by fnord77 »

paxys wrote: post #35

One key line about ATMs is buried deep in the article: > the number of tellers per branch fell by more than a third between 1988 and 2004, but the number of urban bank branches (also encouraged by a wave of bank deregulation allowing more branches) rose by more than 40 percent So, ATMs did impact bank teller jobs by a significant amount. A third of them were made redundant. It's just that the decrease at individual b…

we're going to find out

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#177

Post by plorkyeran »

paxys wrote: post #35

One key line about ATMs is buried deep in the article: > the number of tellers per branch fell by more than a third between 1988 and 2004, but the number of urban bank branches (also encouraged by a wave of bank deregulation allowing more branches) rose by more than 40 percent So, ATMs did impact bank teller jobs by a significant amount. A third of them were made redundant. It's just that the decrease at individual b…

I also notice that in the very first graph bank teller jobs were growing rapidly until ATMs started to be deployed, and then switched to growing very slowly. That sure suggests to me that if ATMs didn't exist bank teller growth would have continued at a faster pace than it actually did.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#178

Post by forinti »

In recent years I have been going less and less to banks. 20 years ago I would go monthly to pay some bills.

Nowadays, I must visit a bank once or twice a year tops. My manager frequently sends me messages, but invariably he is trying to sell me something.

I've noticed that branches have really cut down on tellers and in my latest visit the branch didn't even have a teller, just someone helping people use the ATM and lots of desks (most were empty) for you to handle more complicated business with your account manager.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#180

Post by twosdai »

sothatsit wrote: post #157
twosdai wrote: post #75

I really enjoyed this article, I didn't bridge the idea of an ATM and mobile banking. I think the idea raised about "Automated Firms" is a bit off in the picture painted in that linked article. I think the David Oks intention is to paint a picture of a fully automated company, but the linked article gives this impression: > Future AI firms won’t be constrained by what's scarce or abundant in human skill distributions…

That is why a fully automated firm would be a paradigm shift. Instead of requiring someone to be responsible and to QA things, you just let AI systems be responsible internally, and the company responsible as a whole for legal concerns. This idea of an automated firm relies on the premise that AI will become more capable and reliable than people.

In this regard, the company cannot be created where there is not a single person tied to it, at least legally, even shell corporations have a person on the record as being responsible. So there needs to be some human that is apart of it, and in any "normal" organization if there is a person tied to the outcome of the company they presumably care about it and if the AI 99.99% of the time does good work, but still can make mistakes, a person will still be checking off on all its work. Which leads to a system of people reviewing and signing off on work, not exactly a fully autonomous firm.
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