I'm not worried about AI job loss • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm not worried about AI job loss

#431

Post by catmanjan » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 8:48 AM UTC

jama211 wrote: post #408

Ensorceled wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently did a contract at medium sized business with a large retail and online business that had a CFO and several accountants / bookkeepers. You're describing a situation where that CFO only needs two or three accountants and bookkeepers to run the business and would lay off two or three people. It IS about headcount in a lot of cases.

Or they’d keep the same number of people and increase total value output. Businesses tend to like the idea of growth more than cost cutting after all.

However good growth is finite unless you also believe in immigration and debt

Re: I'm not worried about AI job loss

#432

Post by marsten » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 8:52 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #317

zozbot234 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was with the author on everything except one point: increasing automation will not leave us with such abundance that we never have to work again. That's because we prefer improved living standards over less work. If we only had to live by the standards of one century ago or more, we could likely accomplish that by working very little.

> That's because we prefer improved living standards over less work That's more because we are never given the chance. We only get to keep working or fall of the rat race and at best be delegated to Big Lebowski style pariah existance.

Yes, and housing is priced by competitive auction so if you drop out of the rat race and other people don't, you'll just get out-bid.

Re: I'm not worried about AI job loss

#433

Post by anonzzzies » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 9:00 AM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #127

RevEng wrote: post #101

I was with the author on everything except one point: increasing automation will not leave us with such abundance that we never have to work again. We have heard that lie for over a century. The stream engine didn't do it, electricity didn't do it, computers didn't do it, the Internet didn't do it, and AI won't either. The truth is that as input costs drop, sales prices drop and demand increases - just like the parad…

> I was with the author on everything except one point: increasing automation will not leave us with such abundance that we never have to work again. That's because we prefer improved living standards over less work. If we only had to live by the standards of one century ago or more, we could likely accomplish that by working very little.

> we could likely accomplish that by working very little

Yeah I know many people who do in the small town I live in. Mostly elderly who are used to it still, but also some young people who want to work just enough to buy what they need and not 1 minute more. I could've retired at <20 if I would've enjoyed that. Now I enjoy it more; it's kind of relaxing that kind of lifestyle; not because of not working but because of needing nothing outside your humble possessions.

Re: I'm not worried about AI job loss

#434

Post by catmanjan » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 9:00 AM UTC

fishpham wrote: post #103

Analemma_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds bogus to me: if AI really could close 100% of your backlog with just a couple more humans in the loop, you’d hire a bunch of temps/contractors to do that, then declare the product done and lay off everybody. How come that isn’t happening?

Because there's an unlimited amount of work to do. This is the same reason you are not fired once completing a feature :-) The point of hiring a FTE is to continue to create work that provides business value. For your analogy, FTEs often do that by hiring temp, and you can think of the agent as the new temp in this case - the human drives an infinite amount of them

Sounds more like busy work rather than something that makes money

Re: I'm not worried about AI job loss

#435

Post by gizajob » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 9:06 AM UTC

jackfranklyn wrote: post #248

[flagged]

The desktop PC was the same - everyone said that it was going to wipe out jobs, when the main thing it wiped out was filing cabinets.

AI commentators seem to overlook that one of the primary functions of capitalism is to keep people in busywork: what David Graber called Bullshit Jobs. So AI is going to automate most of the bullshit away but the bullshit employees will keep working, because there wasn’t much need for them in the first place.

Re: I'm not worried about AI job loss

#436

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 9:06 AM UTC

Says the guy that never had to look for a job in a world region where they don't abound.

Re: I'm not worried about AI job loss

#437

Post by gizajob » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 9:07 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #395

kaibee wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that what a well run company does How many of those do you see around?

I bet we're about to see a lot of 10-person $100M+ ARR companies emerge. That's a scale where teams can be tight and excel.

If you can build that with AI, then 9 people with AI can probably wipe out that company, only to be wiped out by 8 people with AI…and so on.

Re: I'm not worried about AI job loss

#438

Post by kristiandupont » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 9:14 AM UTC

ddtaylor wrote: post #117

mattlondon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs that require physical effort will be fine for the reasons you state Any job that is predominantly done on a computer though is at risk IMO. AI might not completely take over everything, but I think we'll see way fewer humans managing/orchestrating larger and larger fleets of agents. Instead of say 20 people doing some function, you'll have 3 or 4 prompting away to manage the agents to get the same amount of work…

> So the people flipping the burgers and serving the customers will be safe, but the accountants and marketing folks won't be. And that's probably something most people are okay with. Work that can be automated should be and humans should be spending their time on novel things instead of labor if possible.

>And that's probably something most people are okay with

You think most people are okay with most white collar jobs disappearing? I certainly am not, personally.

Re: I'm not worried about AI job loss

#439

Post by npodbielski » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 9:18 AM UTC

> we’ll have spent quite a while in a world of such abundance and plenty that jobs might simply be superfluous. Perhaps we’ll spend our lives in leisure, pursuing poetry or pure mathematics or the fine art of looksmaxxing.

That is quite a optimistic view that I do not share. The US shitshow with epstein files shows what those with power are actually capable of. The star trek utopia universe is not the world we are building right now collectively. I would expect instead that with robotics and AI combined there will be a lot of more technical jobs for maintaining and building automated systems that serves rich people but not common folks. But still you need knowledge and skill to do that which means you still need to learn and teach those. Which means you still need education and people working there. You still need people that support education sector and technical and maintance sector for AI and robotics. All of them need to eat and have basic needs to be fulfilled. You need agriculture and services and housing and entertainment and dozens of others for that too. So in an essence the author is right but still with AI capable robots I would not expect utopia but somekind of world between blade-runner and alien: you won't be scrolling mindlessly while all you needs are being met but rather trying to save money for the things you dream off while working stupid mindless job you do not like. Which is basically what most of us are doing right now.

So yes nothing will change for most of us but humanity will find a way somehow to make world suck in so many ways by exploiting each other, by stealing from each other, by lying and generally making a world living hell for everyone. Because we do not know any better.

AI won't change that. So as the old saying goes: a lot have to change for everything to stay the same.

Re: I'm not worried about AI job loss

#440

Post by lelanthran » Sat, Feb 14, 2026, 9:20 AM UTC

jackfranklyn wrote: post #248

[flagged]

> And the people who were good at the thinking part but slow at data entry are suddenly the most valuable people in the room.

No, they aren't. They are now competing with everyone - the slow thinkers, the barely-conscious thinkers, the erratic thinkers, the "unable to reach a conclusion" thinkers as well as the people quick at "data entry", with the caveat that the people quick at "data entry" are almost certainly going to be better thinkers than those that weren't quick at data entry.

IOW, you think AI isn't coming for some specific class of programmers, but you are wrong. You and the "other types" will continue this debate in the soup kitchen.