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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

#471

Post by leflambeur »

nyarlathotep_ wrote: post #392
matthest wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone else think the fact that companies hire superfluous employees (i.e. bullshit jobs) is actually fantastic? Because they don't have to do that. They could just operate at max efficiency all the time. Instead, they spread the wealth a bit by having bullshit jobs, even if the existence of these jobs is dependent on the market cycle.

> Does anyone else think the fact that companies hire superfluous employees (i.e. bullshit jobs) is actually fantastic? I do. It's much more important that people live a dignified life and be able to feed their families than "increasing shareholder value" or whatever. I'm a person that would be hypothetically supportive of something like DOGE cuts, but I'd rather have people earning a living even with Soviet-style ma…

tech bros think not only that that system is good, but that they'd be the winners

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

#472

Post by godelski »

leflambeur wrote: post #468
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.

  > the tune is "be leaner".
Seems like they're happy to start cutting limbs to lose weight. It's hard to keep cutting fat if you've been aggressively cutting fat for so long. If the last CEO did their job there shouldn't be much fat left

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

#473

Post by randomname4325 »

Only way to know for sure you're safe from replacement is if your job is a necessary part of something generating revenue and your not easily replaceable. Otherwise you should assume the company won't hesitate to replace you. It's just business.

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

#474

Post by digitcatphd »

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…

As of now yes. But we are still in day 0.1 of GenAI. Do you think this will be the case when o3 models are 10x better and 100x cheaper? There will be a turning point but it’s not happened yet.

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

#475

Post by topspin »

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…

"shouldn't it be painfully obvious in companies' output?"

No.

The bottleneck isn't intellectual productivity. The bottleneck is a legion of other things; regulation, IP law, marketing, etc. The executive email writers and meeting attenders have a swarm of business considerations ricocheting around in their heads in eternal battle with each other. It takes a lot of supposedly brilliant thinking to safely monetize all the things, and many of the factors involved are not manifest in written form anywhere, often for legal reasons.

One place where AI is being disruptive is research: where researchers are applying models in novel ways and making legitimate advances in math, medicine and other fields. Another is art "creatives": graphic artists in particular. They're early victims and likely to be fully supplanted in the near future. A little further on and it'll be writers, actors, etc.

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

#476

Post by godelski »

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…

  > shipping features and fixes faster than ever before
Meanwhile Apple duplicated my gf's contract, creating duplicate birthdays on my calendar. It couldn't find duplicates despite matching name, nickname, phone number, birthdays, and that both contacts were associated with her Apple account. I manually merged and ended up with 3 copies of her birthday in my calendar...

Seriously, this shit can be solved with a regex...

The number of issues like these I see is growing exponentially, not decreasing. I don't think it's AI though, because it started before that. I think these companies are just overfitting whatever silly metrics they have decided are best

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

#477

Post by leflambeur »

godelski wrote: post #472
leflambeur wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> the tune is "be leaner". Seems like they're happy to start cutting limbs to lose weight. It's hard to keep cutting fat if you've been aggressively cutting fat for so long. If the last CEO did their job there shouldn't be much fat left

yet this will continue until it grounds to a halt.

It's amazing and cringy the level of parroting performed by executives. Independent thought is very rare amongst business "leaders".

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

#478

Post by econ »

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 days of hating on idea men seem over.

I don't get it either. You hire someone in the hope for ROI. Some things work some kinda don't. Now people will be n times more productive therefore you should hire fewer people??

That would mean you have no ideas. It says nothing about the potential.

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

#479

Post by nradov »

digitcatphd wrote: post #474
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…

As of now yes. But we are still in day 0.1 of GenAI. Do you think this will be the case when o3 models are 10x better and 100x cheaper? There will be a turning point but it’s not happened yet.

10× better by what metric? Progress on LLMs has been amazing but already appears to be slowing down.

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

#480

Post by ls612 »

barchar wrote: post #440
ls612 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the rate the hyperscalers are increasing capex anything less than 1990s internet era growth rates will not be pretty. So far its been able to sustain those growth rates at the big boy AI companies (look at OpenAI revenue over time) but will it continue? Are we near the end of major LLM advances or are we near the beginning? There are compelling arguments both ways (running out of data is IMO the most compelling be…

It's been able to sustain 90s era revenue growth rates, not 90s era income growth rates no?

I think all of the dot com boom companies other than the shovel sellers like MS and Cisco were not profitable in the 90s? Not even future behemoths like Amazon.
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