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

Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 503 posts

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#471

Post by bookman117 »

catdog wrote: post #254
franticgecko3 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of your points but this one >I find it useful for some coding tasks but think LLMs were overestimated and it will blow up like NFTs No way. NFTs did not make any headway in "the real world": their value proposition was that their cash value was speculative, like most other Blockchain technologies, and that understandably collapsed quickly and brilliantly. Right now developers are using LLMs and they…

LLMs are somewhat useful compared to NFTs and other blockchain bullshit which is nearly completely useless. It will be interesting what happens when the money from the investment bubble dries out and the real costs need to be paid by the users.

Bitcoin has been bootstrapped into usefulness through the durability of the belief many have had in it, especially as people begin to lose confidence in the dollar and US equities.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#472

Post by gamblor956 »

zo1 wrote: post #386
mcmcmc wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of dieticians, investment advisors, and accountants they are usually licensed professionals who face consequences for misconduct. LLMs don’t have malpractice insurance

Good luck getting any of that to happen. All that does is raise the barrier for proof and consequence, because they've got accreditation and "licensing bodies" with their own opaque rules and processes. Accreditation makes it seem like these people are held to some amazing standard with harsh penalties if they don't comply, but really they just add layers of abstraction and places for incompetence, malice and power-t…

In that scenario the lawyer would be suspended for at least 6 months or even lose their license...

The CA Bar disciplined over a hundred lawyers (including some now former lawyers) last month alone.

The client doesn't need another lawyer to make this happen. They just need to complain to the licensing body (the State Bar Association).

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#473

Post by gamblor956 »

decimalenough wrote: post #88

I'm generally an AI skeptic, but it seems awfully early to make this call. Aside from the obvious frontline support, artist, junior coder etc, a whole bunch of white collar "pay me for advice on X" jobs (dietician, financial advice, tax agent, etc), where the advice follows set patterns only mildly tailored for the recipient, seem to be severely at risk. Example: I recently used Gemini for some tax advice that would…

Every month I run some trial law and tax questions past all the big AI chat bots.

They scored about 60% this month. That sounds good until you consider that 60% is a failing grade for the bar exam, and a licensed lawyer getting 40% of their legal advice wrong would be disbarred.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#476

Post by nirui »

asadotzler wrote: post #402
nirui wrote: post #79

There are few problems in this research, first: > AI chatbots have had no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation But Generative AI is not just AI chatbots . There are ones that generate sounds/music, ones that generates imagines etc. Another thing is, the research only looked Denmark, a nation with fairly healthy altitude towards work-life-balance, not a nation that gives proud to people w…

For that last point, as a graphic designer competing with the first generation of digital printmaking and graphic design tools, I experienced the opposite. DIY people and companies are DIY people and companies. The ones that would have paid a real designer continued to do so, and my rates even went up because I offered something that stuck out even from the growing mass of garbage design from the amateurs with PageMa…

I'm glad it worked out for you, but the testimony is objectively somewhat anecdote.

Opposite to your testimony, I know one designer who's an out sourced contractor for a game company. The last time we talked, he's genuinely worried about generative AI, and witnessed layoffs due to the expectation that such tech would replace workers (specially ones who has singular function).

So, yes, there are people who's livelihood has already being negatively effected by AIs. Maybe those are just "DIY people", not "pro-like-me", maybe.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#477

Post by pclmulqdq »

timmytokyo wrote: post #462
pclmulqdq wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, your example is what you used to get from a Google search back when Google wasn't aggressively monetized and enshittified.

I think this is an important point. It's easy to lose track of just how bad search has gotten over the years because the enshittification has been so gradual. The replacement of search by AI is capturing so many people's imaginations because it feels like the way google felt when it first came around. If AI replaces search, I do wonder how long before AI becomes just as enshittified as search did. You know google/Ope…

I am honestly glad that we have normalized paying for AI in a way that was never normalized for search. This way, there's a fighting chance that it won't become a dumb ads platform (although OpenAI seems to be speedrunning this).

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#478

Post by 9rx »

saturn8601 wrote: post #437
9rx wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if no jobs, or fewer jobs than before, rush in to fill the void this time? That means either: 1. The capitalists failed to redeploy capital after the collapse. 2. We entered into some kind of post-capitalism future. To explore further, which one are you imagining?

The capitalists are failing to redeploy capital today . Thats why they have been dumping it into assets for years. They have too much capital and dwindling things they can do with it. AI will skyrocket their capital reserves. There is a poor mechanism for equalizing this since the Nixon years.

> They have too much capital and dwindling things they can do with it.

Yes, we've had full employment for a long, long time. But the idea here is that AI will free up labor that is currently occupied doing something else. If you are trying to say it will fail to do that, that may be true, but if so this discussion is moot.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#479

Post by InfoHuman »

decimalenough wrote: post #88

I'm generally an AI skeptic, but it seems awfully early to make this call. Aside from the obvious frontline support, artist, junior coder etc, a whole bunch of white collar "pay me for advice on X" jobs (dietician, financial advice, tax agent, etc), where the advice follows set patterns only mildly tailored for the recipient, seem to be severely at risk. Example: I recently used Gemini for some tax advice that would…

Those "pay me for advice on X" jobs have survived many other technological innovations. In the pre-internet time, there was an ever-expanding volume of books and articles you could read to get the advice. Then along came the world wide web, search engines, and apps - advice available from anywhere, anytime. And yet dieticians, financial advisors, lawyers, etc. have continued to be in demand.

Are LLMs finally going to be the breakthrough that changes this? Maybe. The anthropomorphized chat experience where you feel like you're talking to a person definitely helps. So does the confident style of LLM answers, which sound expert and definitive.

But I'm not sure it will work for everyone, or even for the majority. Many people lack the background knowledge, vocabulary, patience, and persistence to get good results from their own research. I've seen plenty of people who struggle to use Google effectively, and I suspect these same people will have trouble getting helpful answers on complex topics from an LLM.

Re: Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, say economists

#480

Post by jaredklewis »

photonthug wrote: post #452
jaredklewis wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one knows, but if history is any guide, it is very unlikely. I would also be surprised if the twice the work was "suddenly" required, but would you be surprised if people buy more of something if it costs less? In the 1800s ordinary Americans typically owned only a few outfits. Coats were often passed down several generations. Today, ordinary Americans usually own dozens of outfits. Did Americans in the 1800s simp…

I am not an economist but isn’t there increasing evidence that for many goods/services, supply/demand/cost are just not that closely related anymore? I feel like we’ve seen this repeatedly with greedflation and the post Covid “supply shocks” blamed long after they stop being relevant. Prices go up but don’t come down because meaningful competition is simply not present anymore for large sectors. When it is present..…

> I am not an economist but isn’t there increasing evidence that for many goods/services, supply/demand/cost are just not that closely related anymore? I feel like we’ve seen this repeatedly with greedflation and the post Covid “supply shocks” blamed long after they stop being relevant. Prices go up but don’t come down because meaningful competition is simply not present anymore for large sectors. When it is present.. algorithmic price fixing can take the place of other kind of cabals.

Can you link to the evidence you’re talking about? Did companies only start being greedy in 2020? I would argue the “greedflation” after Covid 19 can mostly be explained by the fact that there was a supply shock combined with a spike in demand as people people shifted consumption to goods and away from services during the pandemic. Some economists, like Isabella Weber, argue that the pandemic served as a coordinating mechanism for sellers to raise prices, but even Weber would never argue that supply and demand are “not that closely related anymore.”

> Outside of goods, there must be more schools than ever before, and more academics qualified to teach at them, but is it bringing down the cost of education?

Well, yes supply has increased but so has demand. In 1960, 7% of adults 25+ had a college degree. Now that’s 37%.

Further the demand is less price sensitive than usual because the government freely lends money to spend on education (us government currently has $1.6 trillion in student debt) and because we mostly encourage kids to get degrees at any cost.

Finally, despite the growth in total number of universities and students, spots at elite institutions are limited and thus scarce and highly valued.

Post reply on HN