any links passing through the pay wall ?
The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI
41–50 of 93 posts
Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't understand why this should not have been obvious. If you have technology that allows expensive workers to do things cheaper why wouldn't same technology allow cheaper workers to do stuff even cheaper... And cheap is good...
Can you explain why freelance writing and translation is being destroyed: > https://researchprofiles.ku.dk/en/publications/winners-and-l... Surely, AI helps them do stuff even cheaper, and cheap is good, so their business should be booming?
I know a freelance translator and they have more business than ever, AI being "mostly" right is not good enough in many businesses. You need oversight and most importantly - accountability in the form of a human that can put their stamp of approval.
Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI
#43Why wouldn't it? The Philippines has a large talent pool of English-speaking workers who can do tons of different IT-related functions that AI can't remotely replace.
If you have a globally distributed sales team with no single office for example with people throughout APAC, the Philippines is the unquestionable place to hire for IT support roles for that region.
Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI
#44People have a bad intuition about economic mechanisms, but that does not mean that AI won't cause huge regressive effects. The transition from independent artisans to factory work didn't cause massive unemployment. But it cause the former artisans to lose out, because they no longer had the bargaining power they had before - their work was now a commodity. This resulted in "Engel's pause", a period in which wages sta…
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Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI
#45From a recent article in The Economist. It turns out that once again many of the jobs that people predicted would be eliminated by AI have instead received a boost, at least for now. This closely follows another recent report on how Indian BPO firms are surprisingly thriving due to AI. "Moreover, AI is helping offshore workers in the Philippines do new, more complex jobs. They are picking up work training AI models o…
I visited India recently and when I saw just how many companies have a GCC there I was mindblown. Lots of cool offices, engineering and technical roles, great work life balance and generally a different vibe. Literally every company that I could recognise had a back office there.
Do these GCC's have great work life balance? They may be better that the service companies, and may pay better, but WLB is shitty everywhere in India as far as I can tell. As an example, the death of Ernest & Young employee Anna Sebastian sparked a lot of discussion in Indian media since it was attributed to work pressure.[1] Another example I recently heard was a USA Texas based company called CorroHealth suddenly closing shop and laying off 800+ employees in India, the employees allege it was retaliation for asking for overtime payment since they were being made to work till 10 pm.[2]
If you are an American or European with colleagues in India, and if they are working or attending meetings after regular work hours, they don't have good WLB. Given a choice, I doubt they would want to attend the late night meetings. Life in India is already like playing a video game in hard mode, and yet we have to work lot more hours for lot less pay, and be regularly told how shitty offshoring work is.
[1]https://www.news18.com/viral/26-year-old-ey-pune-employee-su...
[2]https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/it-employe...
Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI
#46Somebody's got to actually operate those robots, after all
Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't understand why this should not have been obvious. If you have technology that allows expensive workers to do things cheaper why wouldn't same technology allow cheaper workers to do stuff even cheaper... And cheap is good...
Can you explain why freelance writing and translation is being destroyed: > https://researchprofiles.ku.dk/en/publications/winners-and-l... Surely, AI helps them do stuff even cheaper, and cheap is good, so their business should be booming?
Cheaper price doesn't always lead to as large increase in demand. There is only so much writing and translation that is needed. So lowering price does not mean that same amount or more money is spend.
On other hand companies getting these services cheaper can mean that they have less pressure to increase prices.
I think whole Jevon's paradox is misapplied. More efficient use of coal leads to more use cases as they become profitable. Which there was lot of. With many other things like writing or translation there might not be more use cases.
Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI
#48People have a bad intuition about economic mechanisms, but that does not mean that AI won't cause huge regressive effects. The transition from independent artisans to factory work didn't cause massive unemployment. But it cause the former artisans to lose out, because they no longer had the bargaining power they had before - their work was now a commodity. This resulted in "Engel's pause", a period in which wages sta…
Also an analogy with the globalization of manufacturing era. People have I think been prone to assuming that the West has a "magic ingredient" which entitles it to revenues from skilled work forever. A presumption that people overseas, especially in the "south" and "east", wouldn't acquire the same skills or culture. The idea that it is so absolutely critical to software development to be in an office in Silicon Valley that it's worth paying enormous premiums even relative to the rest of America and the West (+).
That is being disrupted. Ironically, by American AI firms who want a cut of all software engineering salaries globally.
(+) UK software developer working for an American multinational here, aware that my salary is "great by UK standards but not by American ones"
Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI
#49People have a bad intuition about economic mechanisms, but that does not mean that AI won't cause huge regressive effects. The transition from independent artisans to factory work didn't cause massive unemployment. But it cause the former artisans to lose out, because they no longer had the bargaining power they had before - their work was now a commodity. This resulted in "Engel's pause", a period in which wages sta…
Also an analogy with the globalization of manufacturing era. People have I think been prone to assuming that the West has a "magic ingredient" which entitles it to revenues from skilled work forever. A presumption that people overseas, especially in the "south" and "east", wouldn't acquire the same skills or culture. The idea that it is so absolutely critical to software development to be in an office in Silicon Vall…
The WFH aficionados that emerged during Covid had no concept of bargain power or power structures.
Dunno why there was such resistance from the owning class afterwards with return to office mandates.
Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI
#50People have a bad intuition about economic mechanisms, but that does not mean that AI won't cause huge regressive effects. The transition from independent artisans to factory work didn't cause massive unemployment. But it cause the former artisans to lose out, because they no longer had the bargaining power they had before - their work was now a commodity. This resulted in "Engel's pause", a period in which wages sta…
Also worth pointing out Anthropic is a sponsor of The Economist. Probably muddies the water some more.