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The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

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Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#461

Post by hyperadvanced »

grumpymuppet wrote: post #451
tdeck wrote: post #416

Maybe someone can help me wrap my head around this in a different way, because here's how I see it. If these tools are really making people so productive, shouldn't it be painfully obvious in companies' output? For example, if these AI coding tools were an amazing productivity boost in the end, we'd expect to see software companies shipping features and fixes faster than ever before. There would be a huge burst in in…

The problem with this sort of analysis is that it's incremental and balanced across a large institution usually. I think the reality is less like a switch and more like there are just certain jobs that get easier and you just need fewer people overall. And you DO see companies laying off people in large numbers fairly regularly.

Layoffs happen because cash is scarce. In fact, cash is so scarce for anything that’s not “AI” that it’s basically nonexistent for startup fundraising purposes.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#463

Post by AznHisoka »

tdeck wrote: post #434
AznHisoka wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“we'd expect to see software companies shipping features and fixes faster than ever before. There would be a huge burst in innovative products and improvements to existing products.” Shipping features faster != innovation or improvements to existing products

Granting that those don't fully overlap, is that relevant to the point? I'm not seeing either.

Because theyre just pushing out stuff that nobody mighy even need or want to buy. Because its not even necessarily leading to more revenue. Software companies arent factories. More stuff doesnt mean more $$$ made

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#464

Post by nradov »

ivape wrote: post #454
tdeck wrote: post #416

Maybe someone can help me wrap my head around this in a different way, because here's how I see it. If these tools are really making people so productive, shouldn't it be painfully obvious in companies' output? For example, if these AI coding tools were an amazing productivity boost in the end, we'd expect to see software companies shipping features and fixes faster than ever before. There would be a huge burst in in…

Companies are not accepting that their entire business will mostly go away. They are mostly frogs boiling in water, that's why they are kinda just incorporating these little chat bots and LLMs into their business, but the truth of the matter is it's all going away and it's impossible to believe. Take something like JIRA, it's entirely laughable because a simple LLM can handle entire project management with freaking v…

That's silly. You still need a way to track and prioritize tasks even if you use voice input. Jira may be replaced with something better, built around an LLM from the ground up. But the basic project management requirements will never go away.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#465

Post by simonsarris »

I think the real white collar bloodbath is that the end of ZIRP was the end of infinite software job postings, and the start of layoffs. I think its easy to now point to AI, but it seems like a canard for the huge thing that already happened.

just look at this:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1JmOr

In terms of magnitude the effect of this is just enormous and still being felt, and never recovered to pre-2020 levels. It may never. (Pre-pandemic job postings indexed to 100, its at 61 for software)

Maybe AI is having an effect on IT jobs though, look at the unique inflection near the start of 2025: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1JmOv

For another point of comparison, construction and nursing job postings are higher than they were pre-pandemic (about 120 and 116 respectively, where pre-pandemic was indexed to 100. Banking jobs still hover around 100.)

I feel like this is almost going to become lost history because the AI hype is so self-insistent. People a decade from now will think Elon slashed Twitter's employee count by 90% because of some AI initiative, and not because he simply thought he could run a lot leaner. We're on year 3-4 of a lot of other companies wondering the same thing. Maybe AI will play into that eventually. But so far companies have needed no such crutch for reducing headcount.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#466

Post by ivape »

nradov wrote: post #464
ivape wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are not accepting that their entire business will mostly go away. They are mostly frogs boiling in water, that's why they are kinda just incorporating these little chat bots and LLMs into their business, but the truth of the matter is it's all going away and it's impossible to believe. Take something like JIRA, it's entirely laughable because a simple LLM can handle entire project management with freaking v…

That's silly. You still need a way to track and prioritize tasks even if you use voice input. Jira may be replaced with something better, built around an LLM from the ground up. But the basic project management requirements will never go away.

Yes, that's quite easy. I say "Hey reorganize the tasks like-so, prioritize this, like so", and if I really need to, I can go ahead and hook up some function calls but I suspect this will be unnecessary with a few more LLM iterations (if even that). You can keep running from how powerful these LLMs are, but I'll just sit and wait for the business/startup apocalypse (which is coming). Jira will not be replaced by something better, it'll be replaced by some weekend project a high schooler makes. The very fact that it's valued at over a billion dollars in the market is just going to be a profound rug pull soon enough.

So let me keep it real, I am shorting Atlassian over the next 5 years. Asana is another, there's plenty of startup IPOs that need to be shorted to the ground basically.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#467

Post by bjt12345 »

tdeck wrote: post #437
bjt12345 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem seems to be two-fold. Firstly, the capex is currently too high for all but the few. This is a rather obvious statement, sure. But the impact is a lot of companies "have tried language models and they didn't work", and the capex is laughable. Secondly, there's a corporate paralysis over AI. I received a panicky policy statement written in legalaise forbidding employees from using LLMs in any form. Written…

This is a good reminder that every org is different. However some companies like Microsoft are aggressively pushing AI tools internally, to a degree that is almost cringe.

But this is often a mixture of these two things.

The tools are often cringe because the capex was laughable. E.g. one solution, the trial was done using public LLMs and then they switched over to an internally built LLM which is terrible.

Or, secondly, the process is often cringe because the corporate aims are laughable.

I've had an argument with a manager making a multi-million dollar investment in a zero coding solution that we ended up throwing in the bin years later.

They argued that they are going with this bad product because "they don't want to have to manage a team of developers".

They responded "this product costs millions of dollars, how dare you?"

How dare me indeed...

They promptly left the company but it took 5 years before it was finally canned, and plenty of people wasted 5 years of their career on a dead-end product.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#468

Post by leflambeur »

simonsarris wrote: post #465

I think the real white collar bloodbath is that the end of ZIRP was the end of infinite software job postings, and the start of layoffs. I think its easy to now point to AI, but it seems like a canard for the huge thing that already happened. just look at this: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1JmOr In terms of magnitude the effect of this is just enormous and still being felt, and never recovered to pre-2020 lev…

It's simply the old Capital vs Labor struggle. CEOs and VCs all sing in the same choir, and for the past 3 years the tune is "be leaner".

p.s.: I'm a big fan of yours on Twitter.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#469

Post by snowwrestler »

tw04 wrote: post #417
snowwrestler wrote: post #400

Historically, people have been pretty good at predicting the effects of new technologies on existing jobs. But quite bad at predicting the new jobs / careers / industries that are eventually created with those technologies. This is why free market economies create more wealth over time than centrally planned economies: the free market allows more people to try seemingly crazy ideas, and is faster to recognize good id…

But also it potentially means mass unemployment and we have literally no plan in place if that happens beyond complete societal collapse. Even if you think all the naysayers are “luddites”, do you really think it’s a great idea to have no backup plan beyond “whupps we all die or just go back to the Stone Age”?

We actually have many backup plans. The most effective ones will be the new business plans that unlock investment which is what creates new jobs. But behind that are a large set of government policies and services that help people who have lost work. And behind that are private resources like charities, nonprofits, even friends and family.

People don’t want society to collapse. So if you think it’s something that people can prevent, feel comforted that everyone is trying to prevent it.

Re: The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine

#470

Post by leflambeur »

daxfohl wrote: post #369
idkwhattocallme wrote: post #23

I worked at two different $10B+ market cap companies during ZIRP. I recall in most meetings over half of the knowledge workers attending were superfluous. I mean, we hired someone on my team to attend cross functional meetings because our calendars were literally too full to attend. Why could we do that? Because the company was growing and hiring someone to attend meetings wasn't going to hurt the skyrocketing stock.…

Agree, but two questions: First, is AI really a better scapegoat? "Reducing headcount due to end of ZIRP" maybe doesn't sound great, but "replacing employees with AI" sounds a whole lot worse from a PR perspective (to me anyway). Second, are companies actually using AI as the scapegoat? I haven't followed it too closely, but I could imagine that layoffs don't say anything about AI at all, and it's mostly media and FU…

isn't the scapegoat he or she who gets sacrificed? I think engineers are that
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