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US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

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Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes. If these companies can afford $trillions, then the government can collect some dues that can fund retraining programs or whatever.

yea, historically in the United States we have been successfully solving all our problems by collecting more taxes. nothing more efficient than giving money to our Government

What was our tax rate that got rid of our WW2 debt?

Taxes definitely solved that problem. And it even brought about the golden age of post WW2 US economy.

The correct taxes in the correct areas serve as an incentive structure to help encourage businesses and individuals to make good decisions. At least, that's what we did 80 years ago.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#202
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats been mostly straightened out for years. This is tariffs, oil, and uncertainty more than anything. When I worked in finance the thing that made the analysts happiest was a split election wherein neither side could accomplish much. We now have the opposite of that, and worse a capricious leader who makes huge changes without much justification or explanation. Pressing "shuffle" on the economic policy doesn't help…

Fun fact the US government was designed to be ineffective on purpose. It's not supposed to do much by design

[deleted]

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats been mostly straightened out for years. This is tariffs, oil, and uncertainty more than anything. When I worked in finance the thing that made the analysts happiest was a split election wherein neither side could accomplish much. We now have the opposite of that, and worse a capricious leader who makes huge changes without much justification or explanation. Pressing "shuffle" on the economic policy doesn't help…

you just keep right on believing that but I'm on the front lines and we still have plenty of people that need to be laid off and we need a reason so AI is as good a reason as any other.

I'm sure there are some organizations that have yet to correct. Most already have.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why a political solution is the only way forward. I’m optimistic that people are finally fed up but who knows.

What sort of political solution is there? What intervention could roll this back?

What intervention could ?

On the technical side, perhaps none. But countless people in the labor movement spilled blood for their rights and dignity. Maybe something similar will be needed here, too.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes. If these companies can afford $trillions, then the government can collect some dues that can fund retraining programs or whatever.

yea, historically in the United States we have been successfully solving all our problems by collecting more taxes. nothing more efficient than giving money to our Government

As opposed to unleashing tech folks on institutions to destroy them, increase costs and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths?

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#206
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "shareholder greed"? They're not running a charity.

This a ridiculous view. It’s literally everywhere. Wanting to make money is one thing. Complete disregard for how you make it is another.

They're not doing anything illegal.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#207

The reality no one ever wants to talk about is that big tech doesn't need as many employees that it has. Anyone who has worked in big tech knows it is true.

I've been reading this same comment non-stop for the last five years.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#208
post #207

The reality no one ever wants to talk about is that big tech doesn't need as many employees that it has. Anyone who has worked in big tech knows it is true.

I've been reading this same comment non-stop for the last five years.

No surprise, it has been true for a while.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#209
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay but - if an industry can afford more employees than it has is there a real reason not to have them? Aside from shareholder greed etc.

Each of those employees is a liability, for various reasons, not just financial. Even if their salaries were completely subsidized by the state, there are many problems that come from having a very large number of employees. Firstly, there is more coordination overhead, and that is not great. Secondly, people are very political and very envious, and that has a corrosive effect on, well everything. Thirdly, people are…

I like your take and ideas. Not sure about capped income because that seems like a reward for the capital owning class.

I've seen the phenomena of people moving and redoing the same tech idea multiple times. I'm pretty convinced that is a negative for the industry. The seem to move on to get another chance at their idea after it becomes contaminated by reality at each employer, destroying a string of organizations with some "pure" vision of some architecture or another.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a conspiracy theory, but I suspect that VC-backed tech industry overhiring circa 2020/2021 was partially done to give this impression.

I don't think so. During that time the potential of LLMs to eliminate work wasn't obvious. That was pre-hype explosion.

I think some attentive VCs couldve predicted this.

Paper from OAI 2020 about scaling laws: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2001.08361 The idea that you can make a system smarter by just putting in more money is very appealing. The earliest OAI coding model is here (Aug 2021): https://openai.com/blog/openai-codex/

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