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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

#501

Post by nradov »

InitialLastName wrote: post #233
mjburgess wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is always the case though. A factor of 50x productivity between expert and novice is small. Consider how long it take you to conduct foot surgery vs. a food surgeon -- close to a decade of medical school + medical experience -- just for a couple hours of work. There have never been that many businesses able to hire novices for this reason.

I think for a surgeon as an example, quality may be a better metric than time. I'll bet I could conduct an attempted foot surgery way faster than a foot surgeon, but they're likely to conduct successful foot surgeries.

Sure, but no one has found a good metric for actually quantifying quality for surgeons. You can't look at just the rate of positive outcomes because often the best surgeons take on the worst cases that others won't even attempt. And we simply don't have enough reliable data to make proper metric adjustments based on individual patient attributes.

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

#502

Post by makeitdouble »

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.

How does it work if they get 10x better in 10 years ? Everything else will have already moved on and the actual technology shift will come from elsewhere.

Basically, what if GenAI is the Minitel and what we want is the internet.

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

#503

Post by Nasrudith »

icedchai wrote: post #148
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.…

I've worked at smaller companies where half the people in the meetings were just there because they had nothing else to do. Lots of "I'm a fly on the wall" and "I'll be a note taker" types. Most of them contributed nothing.

The first mistake is thinking that contribution must be in the form of output instead of ingestion. Of course meetings aren't often the most efficient form of doing so. More being forced to listen (at least officially) so there isn't an excuse.

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

#504

Post by adamtaylor_13 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #188
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.…

This is so true. We had a (admittedly derogatory) term we used during the rise in interest rates, "zero interest rate product managers". Don't get me wrong, I think great product managers are worth their weight in gold, but I encountered so many PMs during the ZIRP era who were essentially just Jira-updaters and meeting-schedulers. The vast majority of folks I see that were in tech that are having trouble getting hir…

I’m realizing that 100% of all product managers I have ever worked with were just ZIRP-PMs.

I have never once worked with a product manager who I could describe as “worth their weight in gold”.

Not saying they don’t exist, but they’re probably even rarer than you think.

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

#505

Post by Nasrudith »

PeterStuer wrote: post #124
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.…

"Hiring someone gave my VP more headcount and therefore more clout" Which is the sole reason automation will not make most people obsolete until the VP level themselves are automated.

Automation is just one form of "face a sufficiently competitive marketplace such that the company can no longer tolerate the dead-weight loss of their egos".

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

#506

Post by alluro2 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #469
tw04 wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peo…

Compared to 30-40 years ago, I believe many in the US would argue that society has already collapsed to a significant extent, with regards to healthcare, education, housing, cost of life, homelessness levels etc.

If these mechanisms you mention are in place and functioning, why is there, for example, such large growth of the economic inequality gap?

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

#507

Post by xkcd1963 »

bawolff wrote: post #483
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…

Honestly, if anything i think AI is going to reverse the trend. Someone is going to have to be hired to clean up after them.

Thats the impression I got. Things overall get just worse in quality because people rely too much on low wages and copy pasting LLM answers

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

#508

Post by ngruhn »

AznHisoka wrote: post #463
tdeck wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Unfortunately, I think it does. Even if customers don't want all that extra stuff and will never use it, it sells better.

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

#509

Post by ghm2180 »

I wonder when the investors and investors in the early printing press or steam engine or excel spreadsheet was invented did they think of the ways — soul crushing homework(books), rapid and cruel colonization(steam engines and trains), innovative project management(excel) — there tech would be used?

The demand for these products was not where it was intended at the time probably. Perhaps the answer to its biggest effect lies in how it will free up human potential and time.

If AI can do that — and that is a big if — then how and what would you do with that time? Well ofc, more activity, different ways to spend time, implying new kinds of jobs.

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

#510

Post by Nasrudith »

argomo wrote: post #447
ccorcos wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do you really think it’s a great idea to have no backup plan What makes you think people haven’t made back up plans? Or are you saying government needs to do it for us?

Ah yes the old "let's make individuals responsible for solving societal problems" bit. Nevermind that the state is sometimes the only entity capable of addressing the situation at scale.

That is literally part of the deal of not living in a literal dictatorship. It is your responsibility to solve societal problems. I mean, geeze what did they teach in civic classes in your generation?
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