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

bloomberg.com

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

#211

Post by shwaj »

Sharlin wrote: post #126
shwaj wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales people sure, but secretaries and support staff?

Customer support? Clearly the first to be cut if there are fewer customers to support, and in any case considered completely expendable and optional. Internal support roles? Also extremely expendable from your average management's perspective.

Maybe I just don’t know how the business works. Many of the support calls that I make are for things or services that I’ve had for a while, not just purchased. So I expected that to be more of a trailing indicator rather than the first area hit.

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

#212

Post by cumcumcumcumcum »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #192
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is completely divorced from the facts given in the article. The main point is that certain types of jobs like customer service reps, secretaries and sales people are being disproportionately affected. If it was just general fears about the economy overall one would expect a more broad-based impact.

Wait, secretaries still exist? I would have figured in the era of word processors that such jobs would be few to nonexistent.

Facts, the last installment (6) of "Secretary's Day" came out in 2013.

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

#213

Post by bentt »

hysan wrote: post #159
amazingamazing wrote: post #31

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 had a longstanding belief that big tech purposely over-employed because it denied resources to competitors. This gave them a velocity edge despite being big and bureaucratic. In the new AI world, denying resources doesn’t slow competitors down anymore because AI raises the productivity floor. Now that over-employment brings no competitive advantage, we’re seeing huge cuts.

Yes, they played a zero sum growth game and seeked acquisition and stock price increase. That ended. That explains most tech layoffs in the past few years.

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

#214

Post by insane_dreamer »

bdangubic wrote: post #200
dragontamer wrote: post #181

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

much of our current economic and social problems stem from efforts to collect _less_ takes from corporations and the wealthy. So yeah, collecting more taxes -- from those who can afford it -- would make a big difference.

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

#215

Post by bdangubic »

dragontamer wrote: post #201
bdangubic wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Taxes would not make top-10 reasons for post WWII “golden age.”

The US Government is at present (without any chances of this being fixed ever again) about the least efficient entity that exists on the Planet Earth and giving it more money will not solve any problem. It will be used though but one of the two political parties to win election(s) and kill any tax law that was previously put in place

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

#216

Post by insane_dreamer »

amazingamazing wrote: post #31

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.

And yet up until a few years ago there were all these forecasts about how we would be short xxxx SWEs

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

#217

Post by insane_dreamer »

awfulneutral wrote: post #15

That thing that reassures me is that I kind of think most people in software aren't doing much useful work anyway, so if the whole thing was really driven by hiring the fewest humans possible to get the work done, companies probably could have fired half of us even without AI.

The article isn't about people in software.

It's about professions like paralegals, translators, office type jobs.

And no, those people can't just be fired without some replacement -- they do actual work that is necessary for these companies to function.

But now they are being replaced, and it's not like they'll find some other job because the "other jobs" are also threatened by AI.

Not a good outcome.

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

#218

Post by bdangubic »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #214
bdangubic wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

much of our current economic and social problems stem from efforts to collect _less_ takes from corporations and the wealthy. So yeah, collecting more taxes -- from those who can afford it -- would make a big difference.

except that it wouldn’t. this is just another type of political shit that was put together by politicians here to fuck with us.

if your family is running a budget deficit, there are two ways to mitigate it

- make more money (drive uber and pizza (at the same time to make double money at night) or get a higher paying job

- stop spending so much fucking money

it seems politically, the left-leaning part of the countries and political party will make you believe that we just need to make more money, give that money to the Federal Government and all our problems will magically disappear.

the right-leaning part of the country and its politicians will make you believe that rich already pay a lot more than most (they do) and that taxing corporations makes no fucking sense (it doesn’t in general).

neither party actually gives a shit about the fact that country is drowning in debt which will eventually be its undoing (those who study history know this as absolute certainty), they are just looking for where more votes are there to be had

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

#219

Post by sys_64738 »

amazingamazing wrote: post #31

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'm at that point in my working life that I don't care about AI but I'd hate to be starting out or mid-career where I need to pay attention. I sometimes wonder if the glory years of tech are drawing to a close and it's time to draw a line under it before it changes too much. AI has tentacles into everything but the reason I do this career is that certain areas of work provide enjoyment. If AI takes that away then I would care less to do the job and be less invested to go the extra yard. I feel there's goodwill in employees that will get sucked out the more AI intrudes into our daily lives.
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