Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 1001 posts

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

#311

Post by rufus_foreman »

trealira wrote: post #81
darth_avocado wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All the people employed by the government and blue collar workers If people don’t have jobs, government doesn’t have taxes to employ other people. If CEOs are salivating at the thought of replacing white collar workers, there is no reason to think next step of AI augmented with robotics won’t replace blue collar workers as well.

> If CEOs are salivating at the thought of replacing white collar workers, there is no reason to think next step of AI augmented with robotics won’t replace blue collar workers as well. Robotics seems harder, though, and has been around for longer than LLMs. Robotic automation can replace blue collar factory workers, but I struggle to imagine it replacing a plumber who comes to your house and fixes your pipes, or a w…

>> or someone who restocks shelves at grocery stores

They've already replaced part of that job at one of the grocery stores that I go to, there's a robot that checks the level of stock on the shelves, https://www.simberobotics.com/store-intelligence/tally.

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

#312

Post by chris_armstrong »

The wildest claims are those of increased labor productivity and economic growth: if they were true, our energy consumption would be increasing wildly beyond our current capacity to add more (dwarfing the increase from AI itself).

Productivity doesn’t increase on its own; economists struggle to separate it from improved processes or more efficient machinery (the “multi factor productivity fudge”). Increased efficiency in production means both more efficient energy use AND being able to use a lot more of it for the same input of labour.

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

#313

Post by hnthrow90348765 »

xp84 wrote: post #227
gerad wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have the experience to tell bad AI responses from good ones.

True, but this becomes less of an issue as AI improves, right? Which is the 'happier' direction to see a problem moving, as if AI doesn't improve, it threatens the jobs less.

I would be worried about the eventual influence of advertising and profits over correctness

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

#314

Post by catigula »

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #290
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 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.

Putting aside economic incentives, which the wealthy were eager to reap, the vast majority of the technical labor force in this country came and still comes from (outside of SF) a specific race and we have huge incentives that literally everyone reading this has brushed up against, whether in support or against, to alter that racial makeup.

Obviously the only real solution to creating an artificial labor shortage is looking externally from the existing labor force. Simply randomly hiring underserved groups didn't really make sense because they weren't participants.

Where I work, we have two main goals when I'm involved in the technical hiring process: hire the cheapest labor and try to increase diversity. I'm not necessarily against either, but those are our goals.

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

#315

Post by Hilift »

ggm wrote: post #269

Without well paid middle classes, who is buying all the fancy goods and services? Money is just rationing. If you devalue the economy implicitly you accept that, and the consequences for society at large. Lenin's dictum: A capitalist will sell you the rope you hang him with Comes to mind

> Without well paid middle classes, who is buying all the fancy goods and services?

People charging on their credit cards. Consumers are adding $2 billion in new debt every day.

"Total household debt increased by $167 billion to reach $18.20 trillion in the first quarter"

https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc

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

#316

Post by brookst »

einpoklum wrote: post #248
brookst wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just can't agree with this argument at all. Today, you hire an intern and they need a lot of hand-holding, are often a net tax on the org, and they deliver a modest benefit. Tomorrow's interns will be accustomed to using AI, will need less hand-holding, will be able to leverage AI to deliver more. Their total impact will be much higher. The whole "entry level is screwed" view only works if you assume that companies…

> will need less hand-holding, will be able to leverage AI to deliver more Well, maybe it'll be the other way around: Maybe they'll need more hand-holding since they're used to relying on AI instead of doing things themselves, and when faced with tasks they need to do, they will be less able. But, eh, what am I even talking about? The _senior_ developers in a many companies need a lot of hand-holding that they aren't…

You’ve eloquently expressed exactly the same disconnect: as long as we think the purpose of internships is to write the same kind of code that interns write today, sure, AI probably makes the whole thing less efficient.

But if the purpose of an internship is to learn how to work in a company, while producing some benefit for the company, I think everything gets better. Just like we don’t measure today’s terms by words per minute typed, I don’t think we’ll measure tomorrow’s interns by Lines of code that hand – written.

So much of the doom here comes from a thought process that goes “we want the same outcomes as today, but the environment is changing, therefore our precious outcomes are at risk.“

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

#317

Post by bravesoul2 »

nyarlathotep_ wrote: post #238
mlsu wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that these "AI layoffs" are really "interest rate" layoffs in disguise. Software was truly truly insane for a bit there. Straight out of college, no-name CS degree, making $120, $150k (back when $120k really meant $120k)? The music had to stop on that one.

The irony now is that 120k is basically minimum wage for major metros (and in most cases that excludes home ownership). Of course, that growth in wages in this sector was a contributing factor to home/rental price increases as the "market" could bear higher prices.

Yeah 120k is the maximum I have earned over 20 years in the industry. I started off circa. 40k maybe that's 70k adj for inflation. Not in US.

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

#318

Post by sokoloff »

jayd16 wrote: post #310
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…

I mean, aren't 3 out of 8 humans from India or China? If the company is big enough to appeal to a global applicant pool its a bit expected.

It’s presumably (from context) a company campus in the US that they’re taking about. I wouldn’t expect 3 of 8 legally authorized to work in the US people to be Chinese or Indian combined.

Other than a few international visitors, I’d expect the makeup to look like the domestic tech worker demographics rather than like the global population demographics.

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

#319

Post by therealpygon »

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…

My opinion is that off-shore teams are also going to be some of the jobs more easily replaced, because many of these are highly standardized with instructions due to the turnover they have. I wouldn’t be surprised if these outsourcing companies are already working toward that end. They are definitely automating and/or able to collect significant training data from the various tools they require their employees to use for customers.

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

#320

Post by LPisGood »

spamizbad wrote: post #216
mlsu wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that these "AI layoffs" are really "interest rate" layoffs in disguise. Software was truly truly insane for a bit there. Straight out of college, no-name CS degree, making $120, $150k (back when $120k really meant $120k)? The music had to stop on that one.

Yeah, my spiciest take is that Jr. Dev salaries really started getting silly during the 2nd half of the 2010s. It was ultimately supply (too little) and demand (too much) pushing them upward, but it was a huge signal we were in a bubble.

As someone who entered the workforce just after this, I feel like I missed the peak. A ton if those people got boatloads of money, great stock options, and many years of experience that they can continue to leverage for excellent positions.
Post reply on HN