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US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

bloomberg.com

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Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#41

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

daedrdev wrote: post #4

I think people are blaming AI for a recession caused by trump’s tarrifs and the oil crisis. Businesses fear that oil prices may explode until enough of the economy enters a recession that oil demand decreases, and are already feeling the supply crunch

This comment is completely divorced from the facts given in the article.

The main point is that certain types of jobs like customer service reps, secretaries and sales people are being disproportionately affected. If it was just general fears about the economy overall one would expect a more broad-based impact.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#42

Post by skippyboxedhero »

awfulneutral wrote: post #15

That thing that reassures me is that I kind of think most people in software aren't doing much useful work anyway, so if the whole thing was really driven by hiring the fewest humans possible to get the work done, companies probably could have fired half of us even without AI.

I think the bigger issue is that management clearly have no idea how to tell which people are actually working. Output could be higher with less people but the situation that managers have crafted is the maximum number of people with minimum level of output. Not good.

The answer to every problem at my place is: more headcount, productivity drops further and further, more headcount, more headcount.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#43

Post by martin-t »

Discussions about this topic need to separate "AI" and aAI.

- "AI" is a tool which workers use - usually to produce outputs of the same or lower quality faster. It needs a human to be constantly monitoring, steering and verifying it.

- aAI is actual AI - what sci-fi authors imagined and what ML companies promise. You ask aAI a question and it either gives you a complete, unbiased and correct answer or says why it cannot do that (insufficient information, not enough computing power, etc.). It doesn't ignore instructions or get stuck in a loop. It doesn't delete your database or exfiltrate secrets.

Obviously, this is a spectrum, not a hard division.

Crucially, "AI" is a tool for workers. aAI is a tool for owners - it replaces workers. Owners give aAI control over a company or some other form of capital and it monitors, steers and verifies humans, who will still be economically valuable for manual work, at least until robots catch up.

---

All the people hyping AI either still see it as a tool ("AI", not aAI), not believing it will mature into aAI and replace them; or they are the owner class who will benefit from not having to pay wages while maintaining their passive income.

If most of your income comes from work (as opposed to passive income from ownership), you have 0 reason to be excited by AI. Your life will not be better if you lose your economic value.

---

EDIT: If you disagree, you should be able to express why and we can have a rational discussion about it.

If you cannot express why, consider not participating in the discussion at all, not even by reducing the visibility of my opinion by downvoting it.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#44

Post by marcosdumay »

agentifysh wrote: post #17
daedrdev wrote: post #4

I think people are blaming AI for a recession caused by trump’s tarrifs and the oil crisis. Businesses fear that oil prices may explode until enough of the economy enters a recession that oil demand decreases, and are already feeling the supply crunch

Yet the stock market is reaching ATH, I don't think recession is the accurate word. I also think the fixation on Trump is misleading and takes away from the actual structural side effects of dollar issuance via unbacked fiat. It's convenient scapegoating to take your attention away from the long lingering issue of US dollar dominance and debt that is now causing large social divide and standard of living. The physics…

It shouldn't require pointing out, but asset prices are not a measure of economic activity. Rain amount and air temperature aren't either, if somehow somebody needs that pointed too. Those are independent things.

You are describing stagflation, that is a kind of recession. Despite all the fundamentals pointing towards it for a while, the US hasn't seen a lot of inflation (at least yet), so that's not what is happening.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#45

Post by hammock »

robberat7 wrote: post #38

This is intentional. Companies are actively trying to develop capabilities to replace humans. I am surprised there are not enough protests against this.

Instead of protesting they are all getting together on Monday mornings in sf and hiking

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#46

Post by b112 »

agentifysh wrote: post #17
daedrdev wrote: post #4

I think people are blaming AI for a recession caused by trump’s tarrifs and the oil crisis. Businesses fear that oil prices may explode until enough of the economy enters a recession that oil demand decreases, and are already feeling the supply crunch

Yet the stock market is reaching ATH, I don't think recession is the accurate word. I also think the fixation on Trump is misleading and takes away from the actual structural side effects of dollar issuance via unbacked fiat. It's convenient scapegoating to take your attention away from the long lingering issue of US dollar dominance and debt that is now causing large social divide and standard of living. The physics…

This is the uncomfortable truth that not enough people understand and they are stuck in a loop chasing after things invented and created specifically to keep you there.

Hardly. Those 'invented things' are invented for one purpose, to make the inventor money. That's how capitalism works.

Fun fact, let's say that tomorrow, all new credit was outlawed. And by law, all existing credit would require payments that took 3 years to pay off. In this fantasy world where we ignore mortgages, my point is that salaries would diminish.

Right now, the cost of everything a person buys is factored into salary costs. Take away interest, and all those 30% interest credit card debts would eventually no longer be part of your salary. This process takes years of course, but no one would issue credit cards, if every person defaulted on them, yet if you look at where salaries really go? With a lot of people, 30%+ goes to just holding debt.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#49

Post by dyauspitr »

nurettin wrote: post #10

The demand for cushy white collar desk jobs (which weren't around 30 years ago) is crashing. Rest of the world, not so much.

Figure has been doing a 75 hour live stream of it actually replacing a real job and it has that AI magic where it has gestures and movements that seem emergent. They’re coming for anything manual in less than 2 years.

Re: US is starting to see heavy job losses in roles exposed to AI

#50

Post by rvz »

agentifysh wrote: post #17
daedrdev wrote: post #4

I think people are blaming AI for a recession caused by trump’s tarrifs and the oil crisis. Businesses fear that oil prices may explode until enough of the economy enters a recession that oil demand decreases, and are already feeling the supply crunch

Yet the stock market is reaching ATH, I don't think recession is the accurate word. I also think the fixation on Trump is misleading and takes away from the actual structural side effects of dollar issuance via unbacked fiat. It's convenient scapegoating to take your attention away from the long lingering issue of US dollar dominance and debt that is now causing large social divide and standard of living. The physics…

Well said.

Although the stock market isn't a reflection of the economy, the most relevant concern is the staggering 40TN+ of debt that can't ever go down as long as the dollar is the reserve currency and have no choice but to endlessly supply more dollars.

The issue with oil rising will make it completely impossible for the Federal Reserve to cut any rates and instead will either hold or raise them.

Then the stock market will have a problem; and those that have properties tied to their RSUs will start panicking.

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