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

491–500 of 503 posts

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

#491

Post by exe34 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #449
exe34 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> globalization would be good for all countries, they just kinda forgot about the massive political instability it could cause Could you say a few more words on this please? Are you referring to the rise of China?

Some resources: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/14/globalisation-... https://business.columbia.edu/sites/default/files-efs/imce-u... But in my own words, while I think economists have always acknowledged there would be some "winners" and "losers" from globalization, I think there is widespread belief now that early globalization boosters misjudged how bad it would be for the "losers", they underestimated h…

Thank you, will read :-)

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

#492

Post by tptacek »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #468
jmacd wrote: post #364

I am currently dealing with a relatively complex legal agreement. It's about 30 pages. I have a lawyer working on it who I consider the best in the country for this domain. I was able to pre-process the agreement, clearly understand most of the major issues, and come up with a proposed set of redlines all relatively easily. I then waited for his redlines and then responded asking questions about a handful of things h…

I am a semi-retired blue collar electrician. Higher IQ, but lowly certifications (definitely not a lawyer). Currently I have initiated a lawsuit in my US state's small claims civil court, over a relatively simple payment dispute. Without the ability to bounce legal questions/tact/procedurals off of Perplexity, I wouldn't have felt comfortable enough to represent myself in court. Even if I were to need a lawyer on thi…

This is super interesting, because I've been in similar conflicts (as a renter trying to recover security deposits in court) and been screwed over by the lawyers I've retained (like, literally not even showing up in court) and I probably could have done all this with an LLM myself. When the stakes are low, why not?

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

#493

Post by cess11 »

bwfan123 wrote: post #222
Macha wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems very simple cause and effect from a economic standpoint. Hype about AI is very high, so investors ask boards what they're doing about AI and using it, because they think AI will disrupt investments that don't. The boards in turn instruct the CEOs to "adopt AI" and so you get all the normal processes about deciding what/if/when to do stuff get short circuited and so you get AI features that no one asked for o…

LLMs have mesmerized us, because, they are able to communicate meaning to us. Fundamentally, we (the recipient of llm output) are generating the meaning from the words given. ie, llms are great when the recipient of their output is a human. But, when their recipient is a machine, the model breaks down, because, machine to machine requires deterministic interactions. this is the weakness I see - regardless of all the…

Since it went viral at release the word "mesmerize" always makes me associate to this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqe3PKGcGkY

Arguably not even tangentially related, but maybe someone might enjoy it anyway.

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

#494

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #240
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…

"I'm generally an AI skeptic, but it seems awfully early to make this call." What call. Maybe some readers miss the (perhaps subtle) difference between "Generative AI is not ..." and "Generative Ai is not going to ..." Then first can be based on fact, e.g., what has happened so far. The second is based on pure speculation. No one knows what will happen in the future. HN is continually being flooded with speculation,…

Whether "AI" investements are "worth it" is not a question considered by the paper. The question it addresses is whether "AI chatbots have had a significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in an occupation." The paper makes no "call". It estimates that so far, there has been no significant impact. This is not a forecast or a prediction. It is a review of past results.

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

#495

Post by photonthug »

jaredklewis wrote: post #480
photonthug wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> In 1960, 7% of adults 25+ had a college degree. Now that’s 37%. .. despite the growth in total number of universities and students, spots at elite institutions are limited and thus scarce and highly valued.

Good example for discussion because I think that it's well known that many people who have attained higher education at great expense nevertheless struggle with unemployment and underemployment, and groan about how competitive things are in academia with thousands of applications for every placement. If we're oversupplied with qualified yet underemployed academics who could be teachers, and yet teachers are unavailable to meet the demand of students who want education.. how is that not a disconnect between supply and demand?

Whenever a huge disconnect like this between supply/demand is pointed out, economists will retreat to discussion of regulation and policies, inflation, macroeconomics conditions. Sure, fine, great.. but that's just another way of saying supply/demand/cost are not closely related.

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

#496

Post by ProllyInfamous »

tptacek wrote: post #492
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a semi-retired blue collar electrician. Higher IQ, but lowly certifications (definitely not a lawyer). Currently I have initiated a lawsuit in my US state's small claims civil court, over a relatively simple payment dispute. Without the ability to bounce legal questions/tact/procedurals off of Perplexity, I wouldn't have felt comfortable enough to represent myself in court. Even if I were to need a lawyer on thi…

This is super interesting, because I've been in similar conflicts (as a renter trying to recover security deposits in court) and been screwed over by the lawyers I've retained (like, literally not even showing up in court) and I probably could have done all this with an LLM myself. When the stakes are low, why not?

I've also had a lawyer not show up (me as criminal defendant), and then try to fleece me for more money (than initially agreed) because we (I) had to reschedule my court date — only to eventually reach a simple plea agreement which any public defender could have secured. LLMs didn't exist when this occurred, well over a decade ago.

>similar conflicts (as a renter trying to recover security deposits in court)

This is basically my current scenario. LL sold the rental I was living in, which I had pre-paid for an entire year, because the septic tank went out. We mutually agreed to end our lease... he then wrote me a check for overpayment... he then canceled the check (without even telling me). As an added bonus, he tried nothing to fix the tank... then sold the disaster to somebody else (I found out only when the new owner showed up on my/his doorstep).

Not my first time in court, but is my first time as Plaintiff. I'm very excited to (potentially) get awarded TREBLE DAMAGES on my few-thousand-dollar initial claim/dispute.

The era of "A lawyer that represents himself has a fool for his client" are rapidly approaching end, particularly within small claims civil courts. I'd love to see entire branches of government replaced with machine-learnt judges.

I've already decided that if the Defendant (in my case) chooses to appeal to our higher court (i.e. not small claims, which he is entitled to do) I will retain an attorney, only because civil procedure is so nuanced.

But I'm trying first, and most of the legwork is already formulated.

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

#497

Post by edanm »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #240
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…

"I'm generally an AI skeptic, but it seems awfully early to make this call." What call. Maybe some readers miss the (perhaps subtle) difference between "Generative AI is not ..." and "Generative Ai is not going to ..." Then first can be based on fact, e.g., what has happened so far. The second is based on pure speculation. No one knows what will happen in the future. HN is continually being flooded with speculation,…

You've got a point.

But I think it's pretty clear what the parent poster means - that it's too early to imply that GenAI won't impact jobs.

Obviously you understood that that was the point parent wanted to make - because you argue against it.

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

#498

Post by crabsand »

asadotzler wrote: post #436
crabsand wrote: post #345

I believe LLMs will create more jobs than it eliminated by raising standards in various fields, including software development. We will have to get to 100% test coverage and document everything and add more bells and whistles to UI etc. The day to day activity may change but there will always be developers.

What I'm seeing is marked decrease in standards and quality everywhere I see LLMs (and diffusion models, any of the transformer-based stuff.) Sometimes that decrease in quality is matched by an increase in reach / access, and so the benefits can outweigh the costs. Think about language translation in web browsers and even smart spectacles, for example. Language translation has been around forever but generally limite…

What I have in mind as an analogy is house cleaning or laundry. In the past these would consume so much time and when washing machines appeared, they probably didn't wash as the "best washer" but they let a large percentage of population to spend less time with laundry and people began to see having clean clothes as a standard.

As you said the current state of LLMs is not dependable but we'll learn how to deal with their poor quality and come up with solutions. The overall secondary effect may be increased standards for the knowledge work everywhere. No one would bother to read TOS for a SaaS, now you can ask for a summary from LLM, or ask it to write a privacy notice to your blog.

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

#499

Post by Merad »

aaronbaugher wrote: post #310
meroes wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dentist already uses something called OverJet(?) that reads X-rays for issues. They seem to trust it and it agreed with what they suspected on the X-rays. Personally, I’ve been misdiagnosed through X-rays by a medical doctor so even being an LLM skeptic, Im slightly favorable to AI in medicine. But I already trust my dentist. A new dentist deferring to AI is scary, and obviously will happen.

I had a misread X-ray once, and I can see how a machine could be better at spotting patterns than a tired technician, so I'm favorable too. I think I'd like a human to at least take a glance at it, though. The mistake on mine was caught when a radiologist checked over the work of the weekend X-ray technician who missed a hairline crack. A second look is always good, and having one look be machine and the other human…

Unfortunately what's likely to happen in our current society and medical system is:

1. Instead of being expected to read N x-rays per hour/day/whatever, radiologists will soon be able expected review 3N or 4N AI diagnoses in the same time.

2. With far less time to spend on each case and an AI that is right most of the time (but imperfect) humans won't be great at catching AI mistakes, even if they're trying.

3. Pay and prestige for radiologists will drop, leading to a lack of quality people entering the field, exacerbating the problems in #2.

4. Eventually administrators and/or politicians will decide that (using made up numbers) very cheap AI-only review with 90% accuracy is "good enough", even though the more expensive AI+human combo can yield 93% accuracy or very expensive human-only review can yield 97% accuracy.

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

#500

Post by flembat »

When workers save time, through automation, they are expected to complete more work. They don't get paid more. It is still the same job. Of course the employer benefits. The reason productivity does not increase is all the incidental nonsense and time wasting activities that employers like to indulge in.
Post reply on HN