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"AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

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Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#211

Post by lenerdenator »

ergonaught wrote: post #120
lenerdenator wrote: post #24

It's also a great example of why tech executives shouldn't be trusted, at all. "My thing will break our entire economy. I'm still gonna build it, though." - statements dreamed up by the utterly deranged

They shouldn't be trusted for any number of reasons, but the need for social systems to adapt to reality isn't their fault.

It wouldn't be their fault if the economic class that they were a part of weren't actively opposed to changing those social systems.

I wouldn't care nearly as much about AI were there a stronger social safety net in the US. However, that's not going to happen anytime soon, because that requires taxes to pay for, and the very wealthy do not like paying those because it reduces their wealth.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#212

Post by fakedang »

sumeno wrote: post #204
kunzhi wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any of those companies learned a lesson.

Sure they did, or at least the ones who survived did. Offshoring went from the thing that was going to kill the US Software Engineering industry to a fairly minor portion of it with US based engineers being even more in demand than they were before

You guys seem to underestimate how much traditional industry is tied in with offshoring. From retail to traditional banking to insurance, there are a shit ton of industries whose jobs are now in India and the Phillipines and not in the US or the EU.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#213

Post by lenerdenator »

freedomben wrote: post #112
lenerdenator wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's good, why's Altman (reportedly) bragging about the preps he's making for societal collapse?[0] [0] https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-ceo-survivalist-prepper

If OpenAI shut theirs down tomorrow and Sam Altman became a travelling monk preaching against the development of AI, do you really believe it would stop the momentum? I don't. The cat is out of the bag. The only thing that would accomplish is giving Google and others less competition. Personally I don't have much trust in any tech companies, including OpenAI, but I'd much rather there be a field of competition than o…

> If OpenAI shut theirs down tomorrow and Sam Altman became a travelling monk preaching against the development of AI, do you really believe it would stop the momentum?

Oh, I know it wouldn't, but I know he won't, because there's too much financial incentive to do so, and Altman and his ilk think that all human endeavors can be judged as a net good or net bad by whether or not they make number go bigger.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#214

Post by hintymad »

I have a hard time imagining how the current large model could possibly replace all the jobs, given that the models simply retrieve and re-organize human-generated knowledge, and perform limited interpolation when it comes to code generation. We software engineers open source all kinds of cool code to replace ourselves to a certain degree, but without us, who's going to generate new knowledge to feed the models?

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#215

Post by ednite »

socalgal2 wrote: post #178
ednite wrote: post #108

Not an expert here, just speaking from experience as a working dev. I don’t think AI is going to replace my job as a software developers anytime soon, but it’s definitely changing how we work (and in many cases, already has). Personally, I use AI a lot. It’s great for boilerplate, getting unstuck, or even offering alternative solutions I wouldn’t have thought of. But where it still struggles sometimes is with the why…

> So yeah, for me AI isn’t a replacement. I agree with everything you wrote. The question is, what about in 6 months? 2 years? 4 years? Just a year ago (not sure the exact timeline) we didn't have the systems we have today that will edit multiple files, iterate over compilation errors and test failures, etc.... So what's it tomorrow?

That’s the part that keeps me up at night at times. I’m already seeing my workflow shift fast, and the next 6–12 months feel even more unpredictable.

Staying adaptable feels like the only real option, but I get that even that might not be enough for everyone.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#216

Post by keiferski »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #206
keiferski wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, it will be expected that people creating content (writing/video/etc.) use a human validation service to prove that they aren’t AI. Anyone that doesn’t use this (and presumably uses AI) will be deranked from YouTube and social media.

Why?

Content ecosystems are only valuable as ecosystems. If everything on a platform becomes AI generated, the average person will stop caring - and they’ll switch to a social network that enforces humans-only.

I don’t think it’s a realistic understanding of psychology or sociology to think that people will be happy only consuming AI stuff.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#217

Post by rvz »

mjr00 wrote: post #61
rvz wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The enitre point is less knowledge worker jobs will be needed. Not more.

Only if you assume the current amount of knowledge work being done, or the amount of output from knowledge work, is the maximum amount possible or desired. Which is incorrect. Every software company has a backlog of 1000 features they want to add, everywhere has a shortage of healthcare workers. If AI makes developers on a successful product 20% more efficient, they won't fire 20% of developers, they'll build 20% mor…

> Only if you assume the current amount of knowledge work being done, or the amount of output from knowledge work, is the maximum amount possible or desired. Which is incorrect.

My point is simple:

Why would I hire 100s of employees when I can cut the most junior and mid-level roles and make the seniors more productive with AI?

> Every software company has a backlog of 1000 features they want to add, everywhere has a shortage of healthcare workers. If AI makes developers on a successful product 20% more efficient, they won't fire 20% of developers, they'll build 20% more features.

Exactly. Keep the seniors with AI and no need for any more engineers, or even just get away with it by firing one of them if they don't want to use AI.

> Now that money isn't free these products are being culled, and the associated jobs along with them. AI is just an excuse.

The problem is "AI" is already good enough and even if their jobs somehow "come back", the salaries will be much lower (not higher) than before.

So knowledge workers have a lot more to lose, rather than gain if they don't use AI.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#218

Post by ookblah »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #169
sasmithjr wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's an exclusive choice between the two, though. I think senior engineers will end up doing both. Looking at GitHub Copilot's agent, it can work asynchronously from the user, so a senior engineer can send it off to work on multiple issues at once while still working on tasks that aren't well suited for the agent. And really, I think many senior engineers are already doing both in a lot of cases where t…

Guiding and teaching developers is rewarding because human connections are important I don't mentor juniors because it makes me more productive I mentor juniors because I enjoy watching a human grow and develop and gain expertise I am reminded of reports that Ian McKellen broke down crying on the set of one of The Hobbit movies because the joy of being an actor for him was nothing like acting on green screen sets del…

and just to play devil's advocate maybe some people don't enjoy that? remove the issue of training the next generation for a moment.

just like with open vs. closed offices or remote vs in-person, maybe some people have all the human interaction they want outside of work and don't mind "talking" to some AI as long as it gets shit done in the manner they want.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#219

Post by mjr00 »

rvz wrote: post #217
mjr00 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you assume the current amount of knowledge work being done, or the amount of output from knowledge work, is the maximum amount possible or desired. Which is incorrect. Every software company has a backlog of 1000 features they want to add, everywhere has a shortage of healthcare workers. If AI makes developers on a successful product 20% more efficient, they won't fire 20% of developers, they'll build 20% mor…

> Only if you assume the current amount of knowledge work being done, or the amount of output from knowledge work, is the maximum amount possible or desired. Which is incorrect. My point is simple: Why would I hire 100s of employees when I can cut the most junior and mid-level roles and make the seniors more productive with AI? > Every software company has a backlog of 1000 features they want to add, everywhere has a…

> Why would I hire 100s of employees when I can cut the most junior and mid-level roles and make the seniors more productive with AI?

Because at competent companies juniors and mid-level employees aren't just cranking out code, they're developing an understanding of the domain and system. If all you cared about was cranking out code and features, you'd have outsourced to Infosys etc long ago. (Admittedly, many companies aren't competent.)

> Exactly. Keep the seniors with AI and no need for any more engineers, or even just get away with it by firing one of them if they don't want to use AI.

This doesn't make any sense. I asked ChatGPT and it couldn't parse it either.

> The problem is "AI" is already good enough and even if their jobs somehow "come back", the salaries will be much lower (not higher) than before.

This much is true but tech salary inflation was, again, largely a ZIRP phenomenon and has nothing to do with AI. Junior developers were never really worth $150k/year right out of university.

Re: "AI Will Replace All the Jobs " Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing

#220

Post by bluefirebrand »

ookblah wrote: post #218
bluefirebrand wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guiding and teaching developers is rewarding because human connections are important I don't mentor juniors because it makes me more productive I mentor juniors because I enjoy watching a human grow and develop and gain expertise I am reminded of reports that Ian McKellen broke down crying on the set of one of The Hobbit movies because the joy of being an actor for him was nothing like acting on green screen sets del…

and just to play devil's advocate maybe some people don't enjoy that? remove the issue of training the next generation for a moment. just like with open vs. closed offices or remote vs in-person, maybe some people have all the human interaction they want outside of work and don't mind "talking" to some AI as long as it gets shit done in the manner they want.

> maybe some people have all the human interaction they want outside of work and don't mind "talking" to some AI as long as it gets shit done in the manner they want

This isn't about satisfying a person's need for socializing it is about satisfying society's need for well socialized people

You can prefer closed offices and still be a well socialized person

You can prefer remote work and still be a well socialized person

You can even prefer working alone and still be a well socialized person

If you are in favor of replacing all humans with machines, you are pretty much by definition an asocial person and society should reject you

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