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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

#251

Post by trollbridge »

wagwang wrote: post #224
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…

> because productivity gains must benefit the lower classes to see a multiplier in the economy by this logic, the invention of mechanized farm equipment, which displaced farm labor, didnt increase productivity

The benefits largely accrued to the poorest people.

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

#252

Post by Illniyar »

dylan604 wrote: post #154
eloisant wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't true before smartphones, everyone had a computer so they could access the Internet. Except maybe in developing countries - but the article is about the US.

At one point, humans had not stepped on the moon. At one point, we didn't know about antibiotics. At one point.... It doesn't matter what used to be, we're discussing what is now. We now have mobile devices that are much cheaper for people to obtain than a computer. For most, that device is more powerful than a computer they could afford. Arguing the fact that a vast number of people's only compute device is their mo…

We are not. We are discussing what killed the teller jobs, which happened years ago, not now.

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

#253

Post by trollbridge »

jimbokun wrote: post #241
aurareturn wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I do bespoke work like this, but mostly to replace software that’s starting to cost mid 5 figure amounts per year for a SaaS setup and the support phone line has been replaced by an LLM chat bot.

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

#254

Post by dheera »

whatisthiseven wrote: post #186
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…

> 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…

> We may reach a point where the only ones able to afford compute are AI companies

Nah. I think "good enough AI for 95% of people" will be able to run locally within 3-5 years on consumer-accessible devices. There will be concentration of the best compute in AI companies for training, but inference will always become cheaper over time. Decommissioned training chips will also become inference chips, adding even more compute capacity to inference.

This is like computing once again. In 1990 only the upper class could afford computers, as of 2000 only the upper class owned mobile phones, as of now more or less everyone and their kid has these things.

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

#255

Post by hn_acc1 »

mcmcmc wrote: post #222
mullingitover wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My prediction is no, because productivity gains must benefit the lower classes to see a multiplier in the economy. 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. The problem with services is that they're typically resistant to productiv…

I’m sick of this idea that “free” services are beneficial to society. There is no such thing as a free lunch; users are essentially bartering their time, attention, IP (contributed content) and personal/behavioral data in exchange for access to the service. By selling those services at a cost of “free”, hyperscalers eliminate competition by forcing market entrants to compete against a unit price of 0. They have to ha…

This 1000x. "Free" is only a viable business model if the govt funds it. Otherwise, the $$ has to come from somewhere else in the company - how long will it take for the company to lose interest in a loss-leader when they're making $$ from other parts?

Look at all the deprecated Google products. What happens when Gemini-SaaS makes billions from licensing to other companies, and Gemini-Charity-for-the-poors starts losing money?

Sadly, the bigger the $$ in the tech pie, the more we have attracted robber barons, etc.

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

#256

Post by hn_acc1 »

dheera wrote: post #254
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…

> We may reach a point where the only ones able to afford compute are AI companies Nah. I think "good enough AI for 95% of people" will be able to run locally within 3-5 years on consumer-accessible devices. There will be concentration of the best compute in AI companies for training, but inference will always become cheaper over time. Decommissioned training chips will also become inference chips, adding even more c…

1990? We were solid lower-middle class, and I got a computer for Christmas in 1983. I bought my own, from $$ saved by working in 1987.

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

#257

Post by croes »

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…

And then came 2008, so that boom was built on fraud.

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

#258

Post by TeMPOraL »

bwestergard wrote: post #243
mullingitover wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 amo…

It's very true for healthcare (especially mental healthcare) and education today as well, because for most people, the choice isn't LLM vs. human attention - it's LLM vs. no access at all.

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

#259

Post by hn_acc1 »

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…

Right there with you. Sure, I have gained a lot as a software engineer in the valley (I guess I'm upper-middle class now), but I'd give it up and go right back to lower-middle class (1980s) status I was raised in if it meant my kids could also aspire to a similar lower-middle class life.

This suicide-pact of "either AI goes crazy and 100 people rule the world with 99% of the world's wealth" or "AI fails badly and everyone's standard of living drops 3 levels, except for the 100 people that rule the world with 99% of the world's wealth" is not what I signed up for. Nor is it in any way sustainable or wise.

Too much class distinction / wealth between lower/upper classes, and a surplus of unemployed lower-class men is how many revolts/revolutions/wars have started.

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

#260

Post by bayarearefugee »

RHSeeger wrote: post #110
haliskerbas wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the booming companies pay the same as the ones who did layoffs? If you're laid off from Meta or other top tier paying company (the behemoths doing layoffs) you might have a tough time matching your compensation.

But do they need to? If a job at a top tier company making $600k is eliminated and two jobs at a "more average" company making $300k replace it; is that really a bad thing? Clearly, there's some details being glossed over, but "one job paying more than a person really needs" being replaced by "two jobs, each paying more than a person really needs" might just be good for society as a whole.

It doesn't seem too bad when you cherry pick an outlier example, but what about when the person making $100k now makes $50k?

I'm sure the retort of the AI optimist will be that AI will make the things that person buys cheaper, and there may be truth to that when it comes to things that people buy with disposable income...

But how likely is AI to make actual essentials like housing and food cheaper?

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