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ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

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Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#241

Post by jimbokun »

aurareturn wrote: post #92
paxys wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why will we need 1000 companies tomorrow to do the same thing that 100 companies are doing today? If they are really so efficient because of AI then won't 10 companies be able to solve the same problems?

Because that car repair company with 3 local stores previously couldn't justify building custom software to make their business more efficient and aligned with what they need. The cost was too high. Now they might be able to. Plenty of businesses need very custom software but couldn't realistically build it before.

Car repair companies won’t see a meaningful improvement to their bottom line with more custom software. Will it increase the number of cars per employee per day they can repair?

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#242

Post by s5300 »

idiotsecant wrote: post #115
alex_sf wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If goods aren't being sold, then the price will drop.

This and other fairytales. The only solution here is to stop tying people's value to their productivity. That makes a lot of sense in the 1900s but it makes a lot less sense when the primary faucet of productivity is automation. If you insist on tying a person's fundamental right to a decent and secure life to their productivity and then take away their ability to be productive you're left with a permenant and growin…

[dead]

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#243

Post by bwestergard »

mullingitover wrote: post #211
bwestergard wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Baumol's cost disease hurts the lower classes by restricting their access to services like health care and education, and LLMs/agents make it possible to increase productivity in these areas in ways which were once unimaginable." You've expressed very clearly what LLMs would have to do in order to be economically transformative. "If you can get high quality medical advice for effectively nothing, if you can get high…

> Why should one child get an LLM teacher or doctor while others get individualized attention by a skilled human being? Is the value in the outcome of receiving medical advice and care, and becoming educated, or is the value just in the co-opting of another human being's attention? If the value is in the outcome, the means to achieving that aren't of much consequence.

The premise of your argument is that "the outcome" can be separated from the process. This is true enough for manufacturing bricks: I don't much care what processes was used to create a brick if it has certain a compressive strength, mass, etc.

But Baumol's argument, which you introduced to the conversation, is that outcome and process cannot actually be distinguished, even if a distinction in thought is possible among economic theorists.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#244

Post by ProllyInfamous »

mmmlinux wrote: post #102

I didn't see the article mentioning how banks forced people to use ATMs or apps instead of tellers by having "green" accounts. where you would get a monthly account fee waved if you didn't go in to a branch.

Right around when my local credit union began requiring (IMHO insecure) 2FA, I coincidentally moved right next door to a branch location.

Since I refuse to implement their "security" "feature," I just walk into their office every time I need a simple balance inquiry/transfer. They probably hate that I have just enough money deposited to consider my inconveniencing them profitable.

Worth the $1.00 monthly "in-person banking fee"

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#245

Post by Animats »

fragmede wrote: post #230
suzzer99 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the economics behind bank branches. Some of the best real estate by me is taken up by giant bank branches that are always mostly empty with a few bored employees inside. And they open new ones all the time. So it's not like they're stuck in some lease.

But when those employees are meeting with clients, they create money out of thin air by making loans, which then is used to pay for goods and services such as leases.

Right. What banks do is sell loans. That's the profit center. Teller windows, vaults, and cash handling are all low or no revenue cost items.

So newer bank branches look like car dealership offices. There are many little glass rooms where you sit down with a bank employee and discuss loans and other financial products. That's where the money is made.

There's a small area in back with traditional tellers. It's not where the money is made.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#246

Post by ElevenLathe »

babypuncher wrote: post #209
whatisthiseven wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But will it? My prediction is no, because productivity gains must benefit the lower classes to see a multiplier in the economy. For example, ATMs being automated did cause a negative drop in teller jobs, but fast money any time does increase the velocity of money in the economy. It decreases savings rate and encourages spending among the class of people whose money imparts the highest multiplier. AI does not. All t…

I would argue we've even already seen this play out with productivity gains across the economy over the last 40 years. The American middle class has been gradually declining since the '80s. AI seems likely to accelerate that trend for the exact reasons you point out. A lot of people recognize this pattern even if they can't articulate it, and that's why they hate AI so much. To them, it doesn't matter if AI lives up…

> Technological progress that hurts more people than it helps isn't progress, it's class warfare.

I think this is right. The historical analogue I keep drifting toward is Enclosure. LLM tech is like Enclosure for knowledge work. A small class of capital-holding winners will benefit. Everyone else will mostly get more desperate and dependent on those few winners for the means of subsistence. Productivity may eventually rise, but almost nobody alive today will benefit from it since either our livelihood will be decimated (knowledge workers, for now) or we will be forced into AI slop hell-world where our children are taught by right-wing robo-propagandists, we are surveilled to within an inch of our lives, and our doctor is replaced by an iPad (everyone who isn't fabulously wealthy). Maybe we can eek out a living being the meat arms of the World Mind, or maybe we'll turned into hamburger by robotic concentration camp guards.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#247

Post by tingletech »

When ATMs first came out, they were mostly still only at the branch because they were big machines. I remember in the late 70s/early 80s, if you got a steady check (like social security or a paycheck from a steady job) you could cash them at the liquor store. The liquor store would even run my Dad a tab, and he would pay it off when he cashed the check. On paydays he would not be the only one doing that, they must have had to get a lot of cash on hand.

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#248

Post by awesome_dude »

paxys wrote: post #35

One key line about ATMs is buried deep in the article: > the number of tellers per branch fell by more than a third between 1988 and 2004, but the number of urban bank branches (also encouraged by a wave of bank deregulation allowing more branches) rose by more than 40 percent So, ATMs did impact bank teller jobs by a significant amount. A third of them were made redundant. It's just that the decrease at individual b…

> So, ATMs did impact bank teller jobs by a significant amount. A third of them were made redundant.

That's not quite my read - the original says per branch there was a 1/3 reduction, but your comment appears to say 1/3 total redundancy.

There was, according to the original, a 40% increase in number of branches, meaning a net increase in tellers (my math might be off though)

edit:

100 branches → 140 branches = +40%

100 tellers/branch → 67 tellers/branch = -33%

140 × 67 = 9,380

100 × 100 = 10,000

net difference -620 or just over 6% (loss)

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#249

Post by awesome_dude »

paxys wrote: post #67
aurareturn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're already seeing large software companies figure out that they don't need 5,000 developers. They probably only need 1,000 or maybe even fewer. However, the number of software companies being started is booming which should result in net neutral or net positive in software developer employment. Today: 100 software companies employ 1,000 developers each[0] Tomorrow: 10,000 software companies employ 10 developers ea…

Why will we need 1000 companies tomorrow to do the same thing that 100 companies are doing today? If they are really so efficient because of AI then won't 10 companies be able to solve the same problems?

This is one of the key "inefficiencies" of the private sector - there might be one winner at the end of the day providing the product that fills the market niche, but there was always multiple competitors giving it a go in the mean time.

A recent example, Mitchell Hashimoto was pointing out that he wasn't "first to market" with his product(s), he was (at least) SEVENTH

Re: ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

#250

Post by carlosjobim »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #204
carlosjobim wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to grow out of those kind of dreams. That's like a kid dreaming that when he grows up he'll eat ice cream for dinner every day. People when they mature have an innate desire to work. It is good for body and mind. If you're curious about the world, you'll have to do some work one way or another to achieve your goals and satisfy your curiosity. If "society" is just a function of basic needs, then there's plenty…

I would say endless fighting against each other is a much more innate desire than work. I know I don't have one.

Depends on the persons soul. Depends on if your nature is constructive or destructive.

If you go in with the attitude that work is hell and humiliation, that's what life is going to give you.

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