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The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

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Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#281

Post by pedalpete »

CKMo wrote: post #185

There's definitely a big problem with entry-level jobs being replaced by AI. Why hire an intern or a recent college-grad when they lack both the expertise and experience to do what an AI could probably do? Sure, the AI might require handholding and prompting too, but the AI is either cheaper or actually "smarter" than the young person. In many cases, it's both. I work with some people who I believe have the capacity…

We've been doing the exact opposite for some positions.

I've been interviewing marketing people for the last few months (I have a marketing background from long ago), and the senior people were either way too expensive for our bootstrapped start-up, or not of the caliber we want in the company.

At the same time, there are some amazing recent grads and even interns who can't get jobs.

We've been hiring the younger group, and contracting for a few days a week with the more experienced people.

Combine that with AI, and you've got a powerful combination. That's our theory anyway.

It's worked pretty well with our engineers. We are a team of 4 experienced engineers, though as CEO I don't really get to code anymore, and 1 exceptional intern. We've just hired our 2nd intern.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#282

Post by boredatoms »

yobbo wrote: post #275
catigula wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off-shoring is pretty big right now but what shocks me is that when I walk around my company campus I see obscene amounts of people visibly and culturally from, mostly, India and China. The idea that literally massive amounts of this workforce couldn't possibly be filled by domestic grads is pretty hard to engage with. These are low level business and accounting analyst positions. Both sides of the aisle retreated fr…

> The idea that literally massive amounts of this workforce couldn't possibly be filled by domestic grads One theory is that the benefit they might be providing over domestic "grads" is lack of prerequisites for promotion above certain levels (language, cultural fit, and so on). For managers, this means the prestige of increased headcount without the various "burdens" of managing "careerists". For example, less plaus…

I think that would backfire as the intrinsic culture of the company changes as it absorbs more people. Verticals would form from new hires who did manage to get promoted

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#283

Post by carlosjobim »

darth_avocado wrote: post #8

I don’t understand how any business leader can be excited about humans being replaced by AI. If no one has a job, who’s going to buy your stuff? When the unemployment in the country goes up, consumer spending slows down and recession kicks in. How could you be excited for that?

That's a very pessimistic view. People can borrow money against their property, then later they can borrow money against their diploma and professional certificates (and nobody should be allowed to work without being certified, that's dangerous). Then later I think it's time for banks to start offering consumers the reproductive right of mortgaging their children, either born or unborn.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#284

Post by catigula »

boredatoms wrote: post #282
yobbo wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that literally massive amounts of this workforce couldn't possibly be filled by domestic grads One theory is that the benefit they might be providing over domestic "grads" is lack of prerequisites for promotion above certain levels (language, cultural fit, and so on). For managers, this means the prestige of increased headcount without the various "burdens" of managing "careerists". For example, less plaus…

I think that would backfire as the intrinsic culture of the company changes as it absorbs more people. Verticals would form from new hires who did manage to get promoted

It's also not correct to view people as atomized individuals. People band together on shared culture and oftentimes ethnicity.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#285

Post by bluefirebrand »

MattSayar wrote: post #165
hooverd wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you talk about Rust without your friend computer?

Can you talk about assembly without the internet? I fully understand your point and even agree with it to an extent. LLMs are just another layer of abstraction, like C is an abstraction for asm is an abstraction for binary is an abstraction for transistors... we all stand on the shoulders of giants. We write code to accomplish a task, not the other way around.

> Can you talk about assembly without the internet?

Yes.

Can you not?

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#286

Post by lotsofpulp »

idkwhattocallme wrote: post #150
phendrenad2 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the contrary - they were providing value to the VP who benefitted from inflated headcount. That's "real value", it's just a rogue agent is misaligned with the company's goals. And AI cannot provide that kind of value. Will a VP in charge of 100 AI agents be respected as much as a VP in charge of 100 employees? At the end of the day, we're all just monkeys throwing bones in the air in front of a monolith we constru…

True! I golfed with the president of the division on a Friday (during work) and we got to the root of this. Companies would rather burn money on headcount (counted as R&D) than show profits and pay the govt taxes. When you have 70%+ margin on your software, you have money to burn. Dividends back to shareholders was not rewarded during ZIRP. On VP's being respected. I found at the companies I worked at VPs and their d…

> Companies would rather burn money on headcount (counted as R&D) than show profits and pay the govt taxes

The data does not support this. The businesses with the highest market caps are the ones with the highest earnings.

https://companiesmarketcap.com/

Sort by # of employees and you get a list of companies with lower market caps.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#287

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

geraneum wrote: post #261
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business leaders in AI are _not_ excited and agree with your concerns. That's what the source article is about - the CEO of AI lab Anthropic said he sees major social problems coming soon. The problem is that the information environment is twisted in knots. The author, like many commentators, characterizes your concerns as "optimism" and "hype", because she doesn't think AI will actually have these large impacts.

They are. The audience of this talk is not normal people. He’s excited and is targeting a specific group in his messaging. The author is a person like majority.

I don't understand what you mean. The audience of this talk is Axios, a large news website targeting the general public.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#288

Post by TeMPOraL »

psadauskas wrote: post #83
sevensor wrote: post #12

What AI is going to wipe out is white collar jobs where people sleepwalk through the working day and carelessly half ass every task. In 2025, we can get LLMs to do that for us. Unfortunately, the kind of executive who thinks AI is a legitimate replacement for actual work does not recognize the difference. I expect to see the more credulous CEOs dynamiting their companies as a result. Whether the rest of us can surviv…

AIs are great at generating bullshit, so if your job involves generating bullshit, you're probably on the chopping block. I just wish that instead of getting more efficient at generating bullshit, we could just eliminate the bullshit.

> AIs are great at generating bullshit, so if your job involves generating bullshit, you're probably on the chopping block.

That covers majority of sales, advertising and marketing work. Unfortunately, replacing people with AI there will only make things worse for everyone.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#289

Post by ajmurmann »

catigula wrote: post #206
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so true. We had a (admittedly derogatory) term we used during the rise in interest rates, "zero interest rate product managers". Don't get me wrong, I think great product managers are worth their weight in gold, but I encountered so many PMs during the ZIRP era who were essentially just Jira-updaters and meeting-schedulers. The vast majority of folks I see that were in tech that are having trouble getting hir…

Off-shoring is pretty big right now but what shocks me is that when I walk around my company campus I see obscene amounts of people visibly and culturally from, mostly, India and China. The idea that literally massive amounts of this workforce couldn't possibly be filled by domestic grads is pretty hard to engage with. These are low level business and accounting analyst positions. Both sides of the aisle retreated fr…

I am VERY pro-immigration. I do have concerns about the H1B program though. IMO it's not great for both immigrant workers, as well as non-immigrant workers because it creates a class of workers for whom it's harder to change employers which weakens their negotiation position. If this is the case for enough of the workforce it artificially depresses wages for everyone. I want to see a reform that makes it much easier for H1B workers to change employers.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#290

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

yobbo wrote: post #275
catigula wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off-shoring is pretty big right now but what shocks me is that when I walk around my company campus I see obscene amounts of people visibly and culturally from, mostly, India and China. The idea that literally massive amounts of this workforce couldn't possibly be filled by domestic grads is pretty hard to engage with. These are low level business and accounting analyst positions. Both sides of the aisle retreated fr…

> The idea that literally massive amounts of this workforce couldn't possibly be filled by domestic grads One theory is that the benefit they might be providing over domestic "grads" is lack of prerequisites for promotion above certain levels (language, cultural fit, and so on). For managers, this means the prestige of increased headcount without the various "burdens" of managing "careerists". For example, less plaus…

I will admit that this is the most plausible explanation of this phenomenon that explains the benefit to managers I have read on this issue so far.
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