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AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

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Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#31

Post by jmyeet »

AI is going to force the issue of having to deal with the inequity in our economic system. And my belief is that this confrontation will be violent and many people are going to die.

The fundamental issue is wealth inequality. The ultimate forms of wealth redistribution are war and revolution. I personally believe we are already beyond the point where electoral politics can solve this issue and a violent resolution is inevitable.

The issue is that there are a handful of people who are incredibly wealthy and are only getting wealthier. The majority of the population is struggling to survive and only getting poorer.

AI and automation will be used to further displace working people to eke out a tiny percentage increase in profits, which will furhter this inequality as people can no longer afford to live. Plus those still working will have their wages suppressed.

Offshored work originally dsiplaced local workers and created a bunch of problems. AI and automation is a rising tide at this point. Many in tech considered themselves immune to such trends, being highly technical and educated professionals. Those people are in for a very rude shock and it'll happen sooner than they think.

Our politics is divided by those who want to blame marginalized groups (eg immigrants, trans people, "woke" liberals) for declining material conditions (and thus we get Brownshirts and concentration camps) and the other side who wants to defend the neoliberal status quo in the name of institutional norms.

It's about economics, material conditions and, dare I say it, the workers relationship to the means of production.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#32

Post by DoctorOetker »

candiddevmike wrote: post #12

> Despite $30–40 billion in enterprise investment into GenAI, this report uncovers a surprising result in that 95% of organizations are getting zero return. Oof

For companies competing in the same niche, the same low hanging fruits will be automated first if they invest in ML. So within the niche there is no comparative advantage.

It's pay big tech or fall behind.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#33

Post by alephnerd »

Yep! The low value outsourcing firms like Indian WITCH companies have been heavily leveraging LLMs and laying off employees as a result.

High value product work remains safe from AI automation for now, but it was also safe from offshoring so long as domestic capacity existed.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#34

Post by lan321 »

deadbabe wrote: post #15
lan321 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubt. The meaningful work in person is organisational, and it's only marginally better onsite due to whiteboard > Excalidraw. Who does what, how it'll all interact, architecture, etc. If an LLM can code the difficult bits and doesn't fall apart once the project isn't a brand new proof of concept, it'll surely be able to pick the correct pattern and tooling and/or power through the mediocre/bad decision.

Have you used a whiteboard recently? It sucks. Writing anything significant takes forever, there’s no undo or redo, difficult to save and version. There’s just no way it’s better.

It takes forever to make a beautiful diagram, but the usual flow is that you have your presentation for the base idea, and then when the questions come, you can all grab a marker and start making a mess on the boards around the room. We also have one in the dev room, which is nice for smaller topics.

It's not meant to be the actual documentation, and it makes sense to me since you don't want to write the actual documentation during the discussion with multiple highly paid devs and managers. Just take a photo at the end, and it's saved for when you make the documentation.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#35

Post by deadbabe »

lan321 wrote: post #34
deadbabe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used a whiteboard recently? It sucks. Writing anything significant takes forever, there’s no undo or redo, difficult to save and version. There’s just no way it’s better.

It takes forever to make a beautiful diagram, but the usual flow is that you have your presentation for the base idea, and then when the questions come, you can all grab a marker and start making a mess on the boards around the room. We also have one in the dev room, which is nice for smaller topics. It's not meant to be the actual documentation, and it makes sense to me since you don't want to write the actual docum…

That just sounds like office theatre.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#36

Post by grues-dinner »

candiddevmike wrote: post #12

> Despite $30–40 billion in enterprise investment into GenAI, this report uncovers a surprising result in that 95% of organizations are getting zero return. Oof

These are probably the same people who are "surprised" when 100 offshore agency dredgings don't magically do the app 10x faster than 10 expensive onshore workers.

To be fair, the PowerPoint they were shown at that AI Synergies retreat probably was very slick.

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#38

Post by cantrevealname »

jcfrei wrote: post #14

IMHO this is going to be part of a broader trend where advancements in AI and robotics nullify any comparative advantages low wage countries had.

> AI and robotics nullify any comparative advantages low wage countries had

If we project long term, could this mean that countries with the most capital to invest in AI and robotics (like the U.S.) could take back manufacturing dominance from countries with low wages (like China)?

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#39

Post by daymanstep »

cantrevealname wrote: post #38
jcfrei wrote: post #14

IMHO this is going to be part of a broader trend where advancements in AI and robotics nullify any comparative advantages low wage countries had.

> AI and robotics nullify any comparative advantages low wage countries had If we project long term, could this mean that countries with the most capital to invest in AI and robotics (like the U.S.) could take back manufacturing dominance from countries with low wages (like China)?

China has more robots per capita than the US

And the idea that China has low wages is outdated. Companies like Apple don't use China for its low wages, countries like Vietnam have lower wages. China's strength lies in its manufacturing expertise

Re: AI is predominantly replacing outsourced, offshore workers

#40

Post by Aurornis »

jcfrei wrote: post #14

IMHO this is going to be part of a broader trend where advancements in AI and robotics nullify any comparative advantages low wage countries had.

Depends where you draw the line. I would expect countries like China will continue to leverage AI to extend their lead in areas like low cost manufacturing. Some of the very low cost Chinese vendors I use are already using AI tools to review submitted pieces with mixed results, but they’re only going to get better at it.
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