Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 580 posts

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#441

Post by _aavaa_ »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #404
_aavaa_ wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have been for decades: https://aflcio.org/about/leadership/statements/reform-h-1b-a...

That article is from 2003. What about this one on the front page values? https://aflcio.org/issues/immigration > The only way to stop the race to the bottom in wages and standards is for working people of all races, religions and immigration status to stand together > Find resources to help union members know their rights and ensure they are prepared to defend themselves and the immigrant members of their families an…

The first article you link has the following explaining their stance on immigration [0]:

“This approach will ensure that immigration does not depress wages and working conditions or encourage marginal low-wage industries that depend heavily on substandard wages, benefits and working conditions.”

And:

(1) an independent commission to assess and manage future flows, based on labor market shortages that are determined on the basis of actual need;

(2) a secure and effective worker authorization mechanism;

(3) rational operational control of the border;

(4) adjustment of status for the current undocumented population; and

(5) improvement, not expansion, of temporary worker programs, limited to temporary or seasonal, not permanent, jobs.

[0]: https://aflcio.org/resolution/labor-movements-principles-com...

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#442

Post by captainkrtek »

nradov wrote: post #395
captainkrtek wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'But only I can fix that complex race condition, that popped up half a year after development' - well if it was good enough with the bug for people not to notice it for half a year, it's going to be good enough for another half, until the new devs can fix it. From my time at AWS, and in light of the recent DynamoDB dns race condition bug, this is a line of thinking that is problematic. There is so much complexity i…

From a certain perspective, that line of thinking is only "problematic" if customers stop paying. In other words, the product only has to maintain a certain minimum quality threshold and doing any more is a waste of money. I don't necessarily agree with that myself but it is a common attitude.

For sure, as long as the product keeps selling and it stays up, great, the business is still viable.

I think its more analogous to a car with some problems that may be going unchecked; it still drives and gets you from A->B, until it doesn’t.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#443

Post by decimalenough »

jamespo wrote: post #322
cogman10 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do though. My company hires in India and has had a hard time retaining talent there because anyone with mediocre talent can get western salaries by switching to larger companies than our own. We've lost a decent number of engineers to Google, Facebook, and Amazon in India. My company wants to pay roughly $50k USD in India per dev and that's just not enough. They've tried to compete by making nicer facilities and…

FAANG may offer those devs more than your company will in India but I'd be very surprised if they offer them similar compensation to FAANG devs in the West and specifically the US.

It's extremely level dependent. New grad salaries in India are way below Western levels, but senior talent can command Silicon Valley level packages. People switch companies at the drop of a hat to climb another rung on the ladder, which also makes retention very difficult.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#444

Post by whoknowsidont »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #436
whoknowsidont wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is it really hard to understand that the infrastructure for remote work, which I think everyone would agree got a major upgrade during the pandemic, would also make it much easier for companies to outsource software dev work? No, because it wasn't actually upgraded. Like be honest, the shift into remote work wasn't surrounded by massive tech advances or upgrades. All the tools that existed for remote work had been t…

> All the tools that existed for remote work had been there, largely in the same fashion and capability, for decades. Trying to be charitable, but that is just complete nonsense. I managed an offshore team in 2007, and I managed offshore devs in 2022, and the experiences were world and away different. You're either totally full of shit or just managed teams on some other planet or something.

Detail what changed? Because I can't point to anything. And I've been doing this for 4+ decades. A lot of that remote.

So you're claiming things radically changed, and if such changes caused a huge shift in the workforce it should be pretty easy to give some examples, yeah?

Instead of going "you're full of shit", just answer the question at hand and the one that was given to you multiple times.

The fact that it's so easy to do and you just spent way more effort not doing it is a pretty clear indication you are following a narrative, and not facts.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#445

Post by mgh95 »

questionableans wrote: post #375
hunterpayne wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check the pile of CVs that HR rejected. You will be shocked at the talent in there.

Yeah, it is shockingly bad. I’m assuming you’re using “talent” euphemistically here. For a recent job opening I was looking to fill, HR sent us all of the applications rather than doing their own filtering (they did first round calls with people engineering highlighted). The level of resume spam is absolutely staggering. So many applicants to jobs that have no obvious connection to their stated skills & experience, w…

> For a recent job opening I was looking to fill, HR sent us all of the applications rather than doing their own filtering (they did first round calls with people engineering highlighted).

If I can ask, what is it you think of work as? Most jobs are just that: a job, an economic transfer from employer to employee to perform specific tasks.

I hate to say it, but what do you think most Indians working for google, or facebook, or any of the other companies that open centers in India see their purpose there as?

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#446

Post by system2 »

qgin wrote: post #345
system2 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you list a few tools that replaced jobs?

At a big hospital system, nurses call patients with complex medical issues and help organize appointments and tests and whatnot. Previously, they had about 20 people who would transcribe recordings of the calls and then write up documentation for the medical records. Now AI transcribes and writes the report and sends it to the nurse to sign off / make edits.

I am familiar with SOAP. But before AI it was already there, similar voice to text apps. Maybe they became more aware of this tool now?

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#447

Post by jjk166 »

system2 wrote: post #367
pjmlp wrote: post #93

I can tell that editors doing CMS translations, marketing images have certainly been replaced. Likewise many tasks I used to do with Java, .NET, Node.js, have been replaced by low code/no code tools with agentic orchestration. Thinking that AI isn't replacing jobs is wishful thinking.

Those are tools, not jobs.

The combine harvester and the automated telephone switchboard were tools. If a tool allows for tasks to be done with much less labor, and the quantity of those tasks that need doing don't increase by a commensurate amount, then it does mean replaced jobs. The people replaced may move into new and perhaps even better jobs, either at different employers or transforming their current roll, but the job they once had is in lower demand.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#449

Post by woleium »

amypetrik8 wrote: post #437
altcognito wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can make more money. And if you don't, then it's crime against the fiduciary.

Exactly, you're on the hook to profit-max for the next quarterly earnings report. If that may negatively impact subsequent quarters, not your problems, that's to be resolved when profit-maxing those quarters

short termism!

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#450

Post by throw234234234 »

alephnerd wrote: post #394
throw234234234 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that some tech workers don't understand economics that well. In general more efficiency for an industry means less wages per unit of output worked across a whole industry. The benefit of "efficiency" usually accrues to customers of a service, not providers. Efficiency benefits society at large, at the expense of the people being made more efficient. This is just capitalism and the result of price (and also som…

> when I say I'm a SWE people sneer - the respect for the profession IMO due to "efficiency/AI" has crashed over the last decade. Tbf, a lot of SWEs sneered at other professions getting automated by AI - even on HN. There isn't much sympathy to be given to SWEs and techies simply because we are paid significantly higher than other white collar roles with comparable or worse working hours like accounting, marketing, o…

That may be true in the US, but isn't that true worldwide in general. In fact in many countries techies are a bit of a underclass. But I get your point.

My comment was more I think that "sneer" is more around the profession's worth. A few years ago people would go "wow, that's cool". Very different now which shows status of a job is determined by perceived job prospects, security, and impact.

Post reply on HN