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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

#61

Post by bgwalter »

whynotminot wrote: post #49
bgwalter wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the Upton Sinclair quote in this context is a sign of not understanding the quote. The original quote means that you ignore gross injustices of your employer in order to stay employed. It was never used in the sense of denigrating potential competitors in order to stay employed. > People like this have banked their futures on AI not working out. If "AI" succeeds, which is unlikely, what is your recommendation t…

I think the quote makes perfect sense in this context, regardless of the prior application. As to my recommendation to what they do — I dunno man. I’m a software engineer. I don’t know what I am going to do yet. But I’m sure as shit not burying my head in the sand.

Even if you apply the quote in a different sense, which would take away all its pithiness, you are still presupposing that "AI" will turn out to be a success.

The gross injustices in the original quote were already a fact, which makes the quote so powerful.

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

#62

Post by lubujackson »

layer8 wrote: post #56
untrust wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another question: If AI is going to eat up everyone's jobs, how will any business be safe from a new competitor showing up and unseating them off their throne? I don't think that the low level peons would be the only ones at stake as a company could be easily outcompeted as well since AI could conceivably outperform or replace any existing product anyways. I guess funding for processing power and physical machinery t…

Institutional knowledge is key here. Third parties can’t replicate it quickly just by using AI.

Luckily we are firing all those people so they will be available for new roles.

This feels a lot like the dot boom/dot bust era where a lot of new companies are going to sprout up from the ashes of all this disruption.

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

#63

Post by xxs »

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #10
monero-xmr wrote: post #4

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_auto... It wasn’t just Elon. The hype train on self driving cars was extreme only a few years ago, pre-LLM. Self driving cars exist sort of, in a few cities. Quibble all you want but it appears to me that “uber driver” is still a popular widespread job, let alone truck driver, bus driver, and “car owner” itself. I really wish the AI ceos would actually make my l…

Bureaucracy and regulation is the main issue there though. Like in Europe where you're forced to pay a notary to start a business - it's not really even necessary, nevermind something that couldn't be automated, but it's just but of the establishment propping up bureaucrats. Whereas LLMs and generative models in art and coding for example, help to avoid loads of bureaucracy in having to sort out contracts, or even hi…

>Like in Europe where you're forced to pay a notary to start a business

Do you have a specific country in mind, as the statement is not true for quite a lot of EU member states... and likely untrue for most of the European countries.

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

#64

Post by anvandare »

darth_avocado wrote: post #8

I don’t understand how any business leader can be excited about humans being replaced by AI. If no one has a job, who’s going to buy your stuff? When the unemployment in the country goes up, consumer spending slows down and recession kicks in. How could you be excited for that?

A cancerous cell does not care that it is (indirectly) killing the lifeform that it is a part of. It just does what it does without a thought.

And if it could think, it would probably be very proud of the quarter (hour) figures that it could present. The Number has gone up, time for a reward.

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

#65

Post by AnimalMuppet »

At least temporarily, it can be somewhat self-fulfilling, though. Companies believe it, think they'd better shed white-collar jobs to stay competitive. If enough companies believe that, white-collar jobs go down, even if AI is useless.

Of course, in the medium term, those companies may find out that they needed those people, and have to hire, and then have to re-train the new people, and suffer all the disruption that causes, and the companies that didn't do that will be ahead of the game. (Or, they find out that they really didn't need all those people, even if AI is useless, and the companies that didn't get rid of them are stuck with a higher expense structure. We'll see.)

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

#66

Post by zhobbs »

untrust wrote: post #52
darth_avocado wrote: post #8

I don’t understand how any business leader can be excited about humans being replaced by AI. If no one has a job, who’s going to buy your stuff? When the unemployment in the country goes up, consumer spending slows down and recession kicks in. How could you be excited for that?

Another question: If AI is going to eat up everyone's jobs, how will any business be safe from a new competitor showing up and unseating them off their throne? I don't think that the low level peons would be the only ones at stake as a company could be easily outcompeted as well since AI could conceivably outperform or replace any existing product anyways. I guess funding for processing power and physical machinery t…

Yeah this will likely lead to margin compression. The best companies will be fine though, as brand and existing distribution is a huge moat.

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

#67

Post by amanaplanacanal »

roenxi wrote: post #28
darth_avocado wrote: post #8

I don’t understand how any business leader can be excited about humans being replaced by AI. If no one has a job, who’s going to buy your stuff? When the unemployment in the country goes up, consumer spending slows down and recession kicks in. How could you be excited for that?

You're being confused by the numbers. We aren't trying to maximise consumer spending, the point is to maximise living standards. If the market equilibrium price of all goods was $0 consumer spending would be $0 and living standards would be off the charts. It'd be a great outcome. It just happens that up to this point there have been things that couldn't be done by capital. Now we're entering a world where there isn'…

In theory. In reality, how are the benefits of all this efficiency going to be distributed to the people who aren't working? I sure don't see any calls for higher taxes and more wealth redistribution.

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

#68

Post by bachmeier »

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 mean, we hired someone on my team to attend cross functional meetings because our calendars were literally too full to attend.

Some managers read Dilbert and think it's intended as advice.

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

#69

Post by al_borland »

FeteCommuniste wrote: post #14
darth_avocado wrote: post #8

I don’t understand how any business leader can be excited about humans being replaced by AI. If no one has a job, who’s going to buy your stuff? When the unemployment in the country goes up, consumer spending slows down and recession kicks in. How could you be excited for that?

I guess the idea is that the people left working will be made so productive and wealthy thanks to the miracle of AI that they can more than make up the difference with extravagant consumption.

A single rich person can only much door dash. Scaling a customer base needs to be done horizontally.

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

#70

Post by pixl97 »

DrillShopper wrote: post #3

I look forward to the day where executive overpromises and engineering underdeliveries bring about another AI winter so the useful techniques can continue without the stench of the "AI" association and so the grifters go bankrupt.

Just like the internet was a fad, right?
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