Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

bayramovanar.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 230 posts

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#211

Post by daxfohl »

RivieraKid wrote: post #181

A thought I had about this topic, this is a simplification of reality to illustrate a point: Software developers are doing R&D, you create new stuff that continues to exist forever. This is unlike most jobs, in which you produce goods and services that are consumed and then you have to produce them again. What if we are getting to the point where all of the low-hanging stuff is invented? For example, every bank has a…

The ridiculous thing is that we're spending trillions of dollars to develop these coding assistant AI things at the same time we're running out of useful stuff to code.

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#212

Post by daxfohl »

I think there's an argument that AI is helping the (non-AI) software job market. If tech companies are seen as laying off "too fast", then investors will penalize them for not retaining enough people to compete in AI. So companies have to do some layoffs, both to rebalance for the economic downturn and to claim "progress in AI", but not so much that it makes them look weak to investors. Whether they actually need the employees for anything is secondary.

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#213

Post by BobaFloutist »

gdmka wrote: post #156
Bayramovanar wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they even cut costs by leasing the computers...

I'd add that companies write off their equipment investment over a 3-5 year depreciation period. After that, when the laptops reach EOL, employees can often buy them through the company's EPP (employee purchase program) usually for just the fair market value, which might be a couple hundred € or sometimes even less. So, eventually they recoup the equipment costs, wouldn't get surprised if they even make a profit out…

VAT doesn't exist in the US (and sales tax, which we do have, is more like 5-10% of sale cost), so are you talking about something specific to tech companies in Germany or the UK or something?

Not that everything has to be about the US, but it's weird to make a claim about the tech market as a whole that doesn't apply to its biggest single region.

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#214

Post by Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe »

packetlost wrote: post #175
syx wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with many animator friends, this sounds very bleak. Their work processes are very similar to software engineering, with the difference that their hiring process is much quicker (they just show a bunch of reels and shots they made for previous films or cartoons, and they’re hired). The sad part is that they have almost no labor rights, and competition is incredibly high, which means pay is very low and turn…

The difference is animation is part of the entertainment industry and software engineering is part of every industry. I don't really think it will ever be like animators are today, but I wouldn't be surprised if wages fall.

Well I think there's an oversupply of CS engineers, not of animators

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#215

Post by raxxorraxor »

austin-cheney wrote: post #4

From around 2010-2020 the stock market was rewarding growth more than profit. That means large tech employers hired like crazy to indicate growth. Then came COVID and the economy contracted. As a result the stock market changed to reward profitability. So, excess developers had to go. We are still feeling this. I do agree that AI is not to blame for this. In fact I will go further and claim that AI is a net negative…

> If the typical developer is excellent at what they do AI would be a complete net negative.

No. There is work done by AI today no developer can match in speed and speed is relevant for development cost. Excellent developers would very likely employ these tools.

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#216

Post by sizzle »

austin-cheney wrote: post #195
pjc50 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qualification is a very difficult problem, but I think everyone resents the characterization of "bad devs". Things like the Metaverse failure - apparently $70bn spent for no results - are primarily management failures. Like the Cybertruck, they succeeded 100% at building a product that the CEO wanted. The problem is that the CEO is basically the only person that wants that product. There's also the thought nobody wan…

Yes and no. Excellent developers deliver excellent products, like with the Cybertruck example. I wouldn't buy one either, but it appears to be well crafted. Stellar developers are one step better. Yes, they too delivery excellent products, but they also produce things of value that nobody asked for. Business examples include Teflon, Postit Notes, antibiotics, linux, git, and much more. The US Army changed leadership…

Teflon and Antibiotics were scientific discoveries just through a pursuit of curiosity and applying the scientific method. Not sure these scientists who discovered them fit in your developer example… totally different contexts.

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#217

Post by mktk1001 »

austin-cheney wrote: post #4

From around 2010-2020 the stock market was rewarding growth more than profit. That means large tech employers hired like crazy to indicate growth. Then came COVID and the economy contracted. As a result the stock market changed to reward profitability. So, excess developers had to go. We are still feeling this. I do agree that AI is not to blame for this. In fact I will go further and claim that AI is a net negative…

Even if the average employee is pretty good at what they do, why wouldn't AI boost that productivity to another level?

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#218

Post by gdmka »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #213
gdmka wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd add that companies write off their equipment investment over a 3-5 year depreciation period. After that, when the laptops reach EOL, employees can often buy them through the company's EPP (employee purchase program) usually for just the fair market value, which might be a couple hundred € or sometimes even less. So, eventually they recoup the equipment costs, wouldn't get surprised if they even make a profit out…

VAT doesn't exist in the US (and sales tax, which we do have, is more like 5-10% of sale cost), so are you talking about something specific to tech companies in Germany or the UK or something? Not that everything has to be about the US, but it's weird to make a claim about the tech market as a whole that doesn't apply to its biggest single region.

Yep, I've used the € sign for a reason, to make sure people won't get confused.

The article goes into considerable detail about the EU tech industry. My comment relates to that context.

I also want to note, that EPP isn't the correct term here. For US, EPP would mean Manufacturer Employee Purchase Programs for New Products with a discount. Like, if you work for HP, you can purchase a product it manufactures at a discount price for your personal use.

The EU practice that I was mentioning is called IT Asset Disposition through employer to employee disposal program[0]. I don't believe big companies in the US get involved in employer to employee ITAD for lots of reasons. But in EU, it's a thing, much to my surprise.

[0]: https://www.mddp.pl/disposal-of-used-equipment-by-an-employe...

Re: The tech market is fundamentally fucked up and AI is just a scapegoat

#219

Post by HWR_14 »

jjmarr wrote: post #198
HWR_14 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why they don't food liability when they can. Is it worth saving $100,000 a year if it allows the lawyer to say "if they had used industry standard software would the medical error have happened?"

The research hospital in my neighborhood has a whole biomedical engineering dept and regularly tries out new medical technology on me. They consistently try non-standard approaches if they feel like it can improve the standard of care since their commercialization team can make more money. They can also iterate faster and deliver better outcomes. I'm guessing either EHR software is uncompetitive or nobody has tried i…

Trying to improve medicine has a different upside and different calculation than making software less annoying.
Post reply on HN