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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

#351

Post by carlosjobim »

hn_acc1 wrote: post #306
carlosjobim wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the persons soul. Depends on if your nature is constructive or destructive. If you go in with the attitude that work is hell and humiliation, that's what life is going to give you.

I mean... Maybe the things I'd LIKE to work on are getting my car around the race track faster. Very few people will pay me for that - especially if I'm not a very good driver. But I enjoy it immensely. I'd MUCH rather do that than work. And right now, due to having to work, maintenance on my house is a bit behind.. Would also prefer to catch up on that - but again, no one is paying me to do that.

That's still work, if you're doing it seriously enough.

Your misunderstanding is separating this in your mind.

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

#352

Post by Jaygles »

hackyhacky wrote: post #147
pixelatedindex wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Long-term, they will need none. I believe that software will be made obsolete by AI. I think this is a bit hyperbolic. Someone still needs to review and test the code, and if the code is for embedded systems I find it unlikely. For SaaS platforms you’ll see a dramatic reduction, maybe like 80% but it’ll still have a handful of devs. Factories didn’t completely eliminate assembly line workers, you just need a far fe…

> Someone still needs to review and test the code, and if the code is for embedded systems I find it unlikely. I feel like you didn't understand my comment. I am predicting that there is no code to review. You simply ask the AI to do stuff and it does it. Today, for example, you can ask ChatGPT to play chess with you, and it will. You don't need a "chess program," all the rules are built in to the LLM. Same goes for…

LLM technology will never achieve 100% accuracy in its output. There is an inherent non-determinism. Tasks that require 100% accuracy cannot be handled by LLMs alone. If an LLM is used to replace HR, it will inevitably do something wrong, and a human will need to be in the loop to correct it.

Same goes for chess, there will always be a chance that it makes an illegal move. Same goes for code, there will always be a chance that it produces the wrong code.

Maybe a new AI technology will be developed that doesn't have the innate non-determinism, but we don't have that now.

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

#353

Post by kccqzy »

ahartmetz wrote: post #44
djoldman wrote: post #10

TFA reasonably reduces to: First, ATMs increased the demand for bank branches, which more than made up for the decrease in tellers per branch. Second, mobile banking decreased the demand for physical branches.

There are ATMs not attached to bank branches. They could have replaced the branches with ATMs before. (I do wonder what bank tellers are doing these days. I mean actual tellers, not investment advisors and jobs like that.)

I still need to talk to a real bank teller before withdrawing $10,000 in cash. Above a certain amount my bank requires an ID in addition to a debit card and a PIN.

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

#354

Post by awbvious »

Blog says: ATM didn't kill jobs. Okay, it did kill some jobs. Proportionally did, but lots of new banks means overall more jobs. (The relationship management stuff is kind of irrelevant, it was simply the banks took the efficiencies to expand, thus still less tellers per branch, but more tellers overall.) /Completely different technology that didn't have the physical space limitations of ATMs/ then caused branches to decline and then the actual teller decline was felt.

Pretty funny how this is being twisted into what feels like AI booster shillery. Smart people are talking about AI as being similar to ATMs (I prefer the analogy of a spelling and grammar checker in a word processor) or other marginal increasers in human productivity/efficiency. They absolutely will increase productivity. They mean less people can do more. But the the roles don't go away completely because they have clear technological limitations. They spout probably likely text, and straight up lie, and you can't trust 'em. That's a limitation in what they are just like an ATM needs to be in a big metal box and they only dispense cash.

AI can't do the automated firm linked to (to be fair, didn't read that linked substack, as it looked as ridiculous as that other sci-fi fanfic by Citroni Research or whatever it was). Not AI as it is now known, namely an LLM chatbot. /A completely different technology/ might. A technology that might be informed by AI. Sure. Just like I'm sure mobile banking was informed by the technology in ATMs. But we're not calling smartphones with mobile banking apps "mobile ATMs". Because if we were, then you could get away with it. And the future technology that could remove "labor shaped holes" (or however the author phrased it) could be twisted into an AI nomenclature. Just like Machine Learning (ML) got twisted into AI nomenclature. But the iPhone probably didn't need the ATM to come first. It needed things the ATM uses. The next thing could very well use ML. But not enough to be called "AI" except to boosters shills.

Overall, this sounds like the usual AI boosterism that Ed Zitron complains about often. And I agree with his critiques. This article says nothing about how a /new/ technology needs to come about from AI. If it did, it would also have to comment on whether we need to spend insane amounts on data centers and circular deals to get to it. Because my guess is the answer is, no, it takes R&D and a truthful "we don't know what it looks like yet and we can't promise you shareholders when it will come" to get to it.

Ironically the author says the ATM story was used to come up with two incorrect interpretations, and then provides what I feel like was another. Still interesting, if possibly irresponsible in how it frames AI as iPhone--and not the ATM it still feels like. [EDIT: a word.]

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

#355

Post by conductr »

TommyClawd wrote: post #340
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…

[flagged]

> The ATM precedent is optimistic

Is it? Maybe with survivor bias but what about all the laid off tellers? Did their situation improve? Walmart grew a lot over this time period, maybe most of them had to downgrade and be cashiers for a generally bad employer.

Also, and this might be a different analysis and topic, but tellers in the 80s had a pretty good job. It was often a decent wage with a pension and good benefits. Maybe on par with a teacher or government employee - granted not the highest pay but good, was considered a “profession”. Compare that to how it’s changed, it’s a low hourly rate on par or only slightly above retail and fast food work, heavy part-time status so as to avoid paying benefits.

I wouldn’t say that was a great example and is likely to be what may happen elsewhere once the routine work is sufficiently devalued.

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

#356

Post by bluefirebrand »

kelnos wrote: post #350
bluefirebrand wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How did your lower-middle class family justify a $1000 expenditure What, like a yearly vacation? Maybe they stayed home for Christmas one year instead of flying to visit family

Flying? We were solid middle class in the 80s and my first plane flight wasn't until 2001 (and then only because I was away at college and my mother had died suddenly). My parents hadn't flown since the 70s (before my sister and I were born), and even then, that was a rare thing for them. Our childhood vacations were single-day (so we didn't have to pay for a hotel) road trips to a nearby state to go to an amusement…

I suspect your family was not as middle class as you think it was. You're describing a very similar childhood to what I had in the late 80s, but we were lower class for sure

I'm not saying that middle class families flew all the time in the 80s, but they absolutely could afford to if they wanted to make it a priority

A cursory google search seems to bear this out. Cheap flights in north america started in 1978 with some air travel deregulation.

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

#357

Post by rayiner »

ChocMontePy wrote: post #313
rayiner wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. The story isn’t correct even in the original formulation. US population increased by 50% from 1980 to 2010, and the economy became far more financialized. But the number of bank teller jobs barely grew during that period, even before the iPhone.

Yes, I was surprised that the ATM graphs weren't adjusted for population. I used the Perspective tool in an image editor to give a rough idea of what the first graph would look like adjusted for population change: https://i.imgur.com/jJlQcVh.png

Nice!

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

#358

Post by alex43578 »

Devasta wrote: post #270
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 value just in the co-opting of another human being's attention? Thats a weird way of describing it. A machine telling me to exercise and eat right will be ignored, even if the advice is correct. A person I trust taking me aside, looking me in the eye and asking me the same would be taken far more seriously.

Maybe for you, but that model clearly doesn’t generalize, or dieticians and physical trainers would only have success stories to point to.

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

#359

Post by alex43578 »

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…

> cutting out menial decisions such as customer service. … Each person in the US hired to do that job would spend their entire paycheck

This person can no longer get a customer service job, but why can’t they get another job? Customer service is hardly career with a huge sunk cost in training and with a non-fungible skill set.

If they go get another job, compared to the base case of economy = customer service, we now have economy = customer service (AI) + new job.

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

#360

Post by alex43578 »

hn_acc1 wrote: post #259
babypuncher wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eve…

You can easily live a “lower middle class 1980s life” on minimum wage today. Find a 1980s apartment, an early 2000s used car, and don’t bother paying for TV, Starbucks, a cellphone, etc.
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