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CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity

fortune.com

21–30 of 85 posts

Re: CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity

#21
post #16

AI isn’t going away, but it’s also clear the much promised impacts aren’t there and aren’t coming anytime soon. A bit like the claims a few years back that we’d all have self driving cars by now. The most likely outcome is an AI bubble correction that will be somewhat painful and wipe out many/most AI startups, followed by AI settling into day to day in a way that’s useful and found in many places, but not world-as-w…

WE do have self driving cars with Waymo data showing it is clearly better than human drivers in certain markets like Phoenix. It is human regulations, laws and the general societal unease that is preventing a total rapid change. In fact a Robotaxis only urban area which is continuously mapped might be feasible today and probably could even reduce the no of cars needed for the population making it accessible to many more.

Re: CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity

#22
post #16

AI isn’t going away, but it’s also clear the much promised impacts aren’t there and aren’t coming anytime soon. A bit like the claims a few years back that we’d all have self driving cars by now. The most likely outcome is an AI bubble correction that will be somewhat painful and wipe out many/most AI startups, followed by AI settling into day to day in a way that’s useful and found in many places, but not world-as-w…

WE do have self driving cars with Waymo data showing it is clearly better than human drivers in certain markets like Phoenix. It is human regulations, laws and the general societal unease that is preventing a total rapid change. In fact a Robotaxis only urban area which is continuously mapped might be feasible today and probably could even reduce the no of cars needed for the population making it accessible to many m…

AI has the same problem. It’s not that it doesn’t work, but that folks just aren’t all that interested in adopting it at scale. Tech makes this “build it and they will come” error a lot. The tech is quite good, but it’s all the non tech aspects of this that are why it’s not getting impact at scale.

Re: CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity

#23
post #20

My company has pushed engineering all-in for AI in the last few months Our stock price has also gone down 70% in the last few months Naturally, we're pivoting our platform to put AI front and center

The beatings will continue until moral improves

Re: CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity

#24
post #16

AI isn’t going away, but it’s also clear the much promised impacts aren’t there and aren’t coming anytime soon. A bit like the claims a few years back that we’d all have self driving cars by now. The most likely outcome is an AI bubble correction that will be somewhat painful and wipe out many/most AI startups, followed by AI settling into day to day in a way that’s useful and found in many places, but not world-as-w…

depends if post-correction it is worth anyone's money to keep training new frontier models. It could be that it isn't, so we are left with models that were trained in the bubble, but are now increasingly out of date, or (open?) models that are trained much more cheaply somehow with consequent lack of utility.

Re: CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity

#25
post #6

This article is underlining the stark contrast between the viewpoints of “AI Enthusiasts” and everyone else. Don’t get me wrong, I use these tools daily. That being said I’m having a very hard time finding where the productivity gains are. I imagine I’m far from alone in that search and when you pair that with the constant marketing and glowing “analysis” from some of the enthusiasts about how this technology is “sol…

> Don’t get me wrong, I use these tools daily. That being said I’m having a very hard time finding where the productivity gains are. So why are you using the tools? Personal curiosity? Workplace mandate? I've made measurably more and faster progress on both professional and personal projects since adopting these tools. Sometimes assisted is less productive than unassisted, but the net gain is pretty obvious to me.

Honestly? It allows me to be lazy.

Re: CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity

#26
post #16

AI isn’t going away, but it’s also clear the much promised impacts aren’t there and aren’t coming anytime soon. A bit like the claims a few years back that we’d all have self driving cars by now. The most likely outcome is an AI bubble correction that will be somewhat painful and wipe out many/most AI startups, followed by AI settling into day to day in a way that’s useful and found in many places, but not world-as-w…

depends if post-correction it is worth anyone's money to keep training new frontier models. It could be that it isn't, so we are left with models that were trained in the bubble, but are now increasingly out of date, or (open?) models that are trained much more cheaply somehow with consequent lack of utility.

Good point. At some point there will be a reality check for the giant pile of burning cash that is new model training.

Re: CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity

#27
I believe the lack of quick evident profit increases are partly a failure of imagination or a failure of understanding that AI agents are different from people. More impressive or faster in some ways, but much much less reliable in others.

The evolution of harnesses like claude code or open cause, and metaharnesses like Ralph loops, gas town, claws, etc. Will progressively allow for gradually better results and abilities even if models stopped evolving, and if the Mythos eval numbers are to be believed, there is still no hard ceiling to be felt yet.

At the same time, small models that can run on PCs VRAM/UNIFIED RAM have like Qwen are becoming more useful.

I predict that having more and more loops within loops within loops and layers of cloud/local models of different capabilities will solve a great many limitations of LLMS today...at the cost of speed and token count.

We've never had a tool that is at the same time so unreliable and complicated as GenAI before. It will take us a minute to figure out how to use it properly.

Re: CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity

#28
post #16

AI isn’t going away, but it’s also clear the much promised impacts aren’t there and aren’t coming anytime soon. A bit like the claims a few years back that we’d all have self driving cars by now. The most likely outcome is an AI bubble correction that will be somewhat painful and wipe out many/most AI startups, followed by AI settling into day to day in a way that’s useful and found in many places, but not world-as-w…

WE do have self driving cars with Waymo data showing it is clearly better than human drivers in certain markets like Phoenix. It is human regulations, laws and the general societal unease that is preventing a total rapid change. In fact a Robotaxis only urban area which is continuously mapped might be feasible today and probably could even reduce the no of cars needed for the population making it accessible to many m…

> certain markets like Phoenix

So, basically the easiest robotaxi market on the planet? Call me when it works in Bucharest, Mumbai, Istanbul, Cairo, etc.

For software the last 80% of effort needed to finish the 20% remaining items is the hardest and hardware is even harder.

Re: CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity

#29
post #18
post #6

This article is underlining the stark contrast between the viewpoints of “AI Enthusiasts” and everyone else. Don’t get me wrong, I use these tools daily. That being said I’m having a very hard time finding where the productivity gains are. I imagine I’m far from alone in that search and when you pair that with the constant marketing and glowing “analysis” from some of the enthusiasts about how this technology is “sol…

Not the OP, but there are likely many tens/hundreds of thousands of people using AI daily because their management requires it. Management tracks AI usage by employee and uses it as a KPI. You want to keep your job, you use AI. You want a bonus, you use AI a lot. This is simultaneously one of the easier management KPIs for employees to hit and one of the least meaningful. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-work-use-perfo…

you know a tool is good when your boss hinges your career on you using it

Re: CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity

#30
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WE do have self driving cars with Waymo data showing it is clearly better than human drivers in certain markets like Phoenix. It is human regulations, laws and the general societal unease that is preventing a total rapid change. In fact a Robotaxis only urban area which is continuously mapped might be feasible today and probably could even reduce the no of cars needed for the population making it accessible to many m…

AI has the same problem. It’s not that it doesn’t work, but that folks just aren’t all that interested in adopting it at scale. Tech makes this “build it and they will come” error a lot. The tech is quite good, but it’s all the non tech aspects of this that are why it’s not getting impact at scale.

You’re generalizing too much here. One of the biggest problems with LLM’s today is in-fact that they are not at the level being advertised. This is not solely a case of regulation standing in the way of a «revolution».
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