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Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

theregister.com

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Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#331

Post by jvanderbot »

bilsbie wrote: post #283
jvanderbot wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should take time to learn what those jobs are for. You'd be surprised what it takes to keep a business running past any reasonable level of scale.

I’ve worked 10+ of those jobs, guy.

Not convinced. A lot of jobs have tons of slack until something goes wrong.

But even then, I'm not saying all are equally vital, I'm just saying that the statement, "most jobs are performative" doesn't even come close to being supported by "I've worked 10 performative jobs".

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#332

Post by gokhan »

ozgrakkurt wrote: post #105
decimalenough wrote: post #88

I'm generally an AI skeptic, but it seems awfully early to make this call. Aside from the obvious frontline support, artist, junior coder etc, a whole bunch of white collar "pay me for advice on X" jobs (dietician, financial advice, tax agent, etc), where the advice follows set patterns only mildly tailored for the recipient, seem to be severely at risk. Example: I recently used Gemini for some tax advice that would…

It can’t replace a human for support, it is not even close to replacing a junior developer. It can’t replace any advice job because it lies instead of erroring. As an example if you want diet advice, it can lie to you very convincingly so there is no point in getting advice from it. Main value you get from a programmer is they understand what they are doing and they can take the responsibility of what they are develo…

> I find it useful for some coding tasks but think LLMs were overestimated and it will blow up like NFTs

Can't disagree more (on LLMs. NFTs are of course rubbish). I'm using them with all kinds of coding tasks with good success, and it's getting better every week. Also created a lot of documents using them, describing APIs, architecture, processes and many more.

Lately working on creating an MCP for an internal mid-sized API of a task management suite that manages a couple hundred people. I wasn't sure about the promise of AI handling your own data until starting this project, now I'm pretty sure it will handle most of the personal computing tasks in the future.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#333

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

mediaman wrote: post #319
karpour wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently tried looking up something about local tax law in ChatGPT. It confidently told me a completely wrong rule. There are lots of sources for this, but since some probably unknowingly spread misinformation, ChatGPT just treated it as correct. Since I always verify what ChatGPT spits out, it wasn't a big deal for me, just a reminder that it's garbage in, garbage out.

Out of curiosity, did you try this in o3? O3's web research seems to have gotten much, much better than their earlier attempts at using the web, which I didn't like. It seems to browse in a much more human way (trying multiple searches, noticing inconsistencies, following up with more refined searches, etc). But I wonder how it would do in a case like yours where there is conflicting information and whether it picks…

I just asked o3 how to fill out a form 8949 for a sale with an incorrect 1099-B basis not reported to the IRS. It said (with no caveats or hedging, and explicit acknowledgement that it understood the basis was not reported) that you should put the incorrect basis in column (e) with adjustments in (f) and (g), while the IRS instructions are clear (as much as IRS instructions can be...) that in this scenario you should put the correct basis directly in column (e).

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#334

Post by jaredklewis »

bredren wrote: post #327
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm generally an AI skeptic, but it seems awfully early to make this call." What call. Maybe some readers miss the (perhaps subtle) difference between "Generative AI is not ..." and "Generative Ai is not going to ..." Then first can be based on fact, e.g., what has happened so far. The second is based on pure speculation. No one knows what will happen in the future. HN is continually being flooded with speculation,…

> According to the study, "users report average time savings of just 2.8 percent of work hours" from using AI tools. That's a bit more than one hour per 40 hour work week. Could be data is lagging as sibling comment said but this seems wildly difficult to report on a number like this. It also doesn't take into account the benefits to colleagues of active users of LLMs (second order savings). My use of LLMs often mean…

The headline is about wages and jobs. It’s very possible that AI could result in time savings of 50% of work hours in a week and still have no impact on wages or jobs.

This is because the economy is not a static thing. If one variable changes (productivity), it’s not a given that GDP will remain constant and jobs/wages will consequently be reduced. More likely is that all of the variables are always in flux, reacting and responding to changes in the market.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#336

Post by handfuloflight »

cogman10 wrote: post #202
erkt wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just asked O3 for a software stack for deploying AI in a local application and it recommended llama over OpenAI API. It has always been easy to imagine how advertising could destroy the integrity of LLM's. I can guarantee that there will be companies unable to resist the temporary cash flows from it. Those models will destroy their reputation in no time.

I'm an AI pessimist, yet I don't see this happening (at least not without some major advancements in how LLMs work). One major problem is the payment mechanism. The nature of LLMs means you just can't really know or force it to spit out ad garbage in a predictable manor. That'll make it really tricky for an advertiser to want to invest in your LLM advertising (beyond being able to sell the fact that they are an AI ad…

> The nature of LLMs means you just can't really know or force it to spit out ad garbage in a predictable manor.

You certainly can with middleware on inference.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#337

Post by mathgeek »

henryaj wrote: post #280
jacamera wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! All LLMs do is “hallucinate”. Sometimes the output happens to be right, same as a broken clock.

You imply that, like a stopped clock, LLMs are only right occasionally and randomly. Which is just nonsense.

Although I get what you're saying, it's still true that if something is wrong randomly at any point, it is always "randomly wrong".

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#338

Post by bredren »

jaredklewis wrote: post #334
bredren wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to the study, "users report average time savings of just 2.8 percent of work hours" from using AI tools. That's a bit more than one hour per 40 hour work week. Could be data is lagging as sibling comment said but this seems wildly difficult to report on a number like this. It also doesn't take into account the benefits to colleagues of active users of LLMs (second order savings). My use of LLMs often mean…

The headline is about wages and jobs. It’s very possible that AI could result in time savings of 50% of work hours in a week and still have no impact on wages or jobs. This is because the economy is not a static thing. If one variable changes (productivity), it’s not a given that GDP will remain constant and jobs/wages will consequently be reduced. More likely is that all of the variables are always in flux, reacting…

Very well, I acknowledge this point.

However, the parent comment is about an examination of what has happened so far and facts that feed into the paper and its conclusions.

I was focused on what I see as important gaps in measuring impact of AI, and its actual (if difficult to measure) impact right now.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#339

Post by handfuloflight »

notTooFarGone wrote: post #129
soared wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similairly, while not perfect I use AI to help redesign my landscaping by uploading a picture of my yard and having it come up with different options. Also took a picture of my tire while at the garage and asked it if I really needed new tires or not. Took a picture of my sprinkler box and had it figure out what was going on. Potentially all situations where I would’ve paid (or paid more than I already was) a local l…

So in the coming few years on the question whether or not to change your tires, a suggestions for shops in your area will come with a recommendation to change them. Do you think you would trust the outcome?

God forbid people attempt to facilitate legitimate commerce!

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#340

Post by BurningFrog »

New technology has replaced human jobs since the start of the Industrial Revolution 250 years ago. The replaced workforce have always moved to other jobs, often in entirely new professions.

For all those 250 years most people have predicted that the next new technology will make the replaced workforce permanently unemployed, despite the track record of that prediction. We constantly predict poverty and get prosperity.

I kinda get why: The job loss is concrete reality while the newly created jobs are speculation.

Still, I'm confident AI will continue the extremely strong trend.

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