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Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions

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Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions

#61

Post by crystal_revenge »

tunesmith wrote: post #30

Unfortunately it will take longer for our bosses to walk it back. I feel like I'm fighting the battle daily, telling execs what kind of work LLMs do not replace... it's very slippery, they keep on doing the rhetorical texas two-step - I don't think they even realize they're doing it. We communicate that LLM is amplifying, they hear it can replace. "No, we need humans to help with specs" "But AI can help with that." "…

> "But only help, they can't come up with the idea." "Sure they can, we can just ask them."

I've had multiple instances now where AI left to it's own devices has solved a tricky problem that I honestly didn't think it was capable of. I routinely have them design their own experiment loops, learn from each round and iterate on the process. Multiple times it has lead to a needle moving change with no need for human intervention.

There are, of course, many cases where this is not true, but they're certainly more capable than I had previously thought and can solve an increasingly large range of problems on their own.

Reading the comments here is like glimpsing in to either the past or an alternate timeline.

There's tons of inertia in the system so don't expect change to happen over night, but reading "AI won't replace jobs" today feels a lot like when I used to hear "nobody will purchase things online!" back in the mid 1990s.

Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions

#62

Post by andy99 »

datakan wrote: post #45
tunesmith wrote: post #30

Unfortunately it will take longer for our bosses to walk it back. I feel like I'm fighting the battle daily, telling execs what kind of work LLMs do not replace... it's very slippery, they keep on doing the rhetorical texas two-step - I don't think they even realize they're doing it. We communicate that LLM is amplifying, they hear it can replace. "No, we need humans to help with specs" "But AI can help with that." "…

It tells you a lot about your execs and how little they care, either for their employees or their customers. The quarterly profits are their God and they will worship at the altar of the stock price. Instead of finding ways to make AI enhance their employees and make them more productive, they immediately jump to ways to eliminate employees. It's the opposite of a growth mentallity. I'd love for these executives to s…

  I've never seen a company punished for doing the right thing, caring for humans and providing a good work environment.
We’ll see how this goes over but I disagree. You don’t have to look hard in tech, especially a few years ago, to find groups of coddled “workers”, doing very little or at least doing what they want instead of what a business and customers want. This paradoxically ended up creating toxic work environments, and making it impossible to actually get work out of people. We’re seeing a correction now.

Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions

#64

Post by r4dd »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #61
tunesmith wrote: post #30

Unfortunately it will take longer for our bosses to walk it back. I feel like I'm fighting the battle daily, telling execs what kind of work LLMs do not replace... it's very slippery, they keep on doing the rhetorical texas two-step - I don't think they even realize they're doing it. We communicate that LLM is amplifying, they hear it can replace. "No, we need humans to help with specs" "But AI can help with that." "…

> "But only help, they can't come up with the idea." "Sure they can, we can just ask them." I've had multiple instances now where AI left to it's own devices has solved a tricky problem that I honestly didn't think it was capable of. I routinely have them design their own experiment loops, learn from each round and iterate on the process. Multiple times it has lead to a needle moving change with no need for human int…

These posts are so boring lmao.

if you really believe this, quit the yapping and concentrate your portfolio for direct and indirect exposure to all frontier AI projects.

Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions

#65

Post by elliotec »

CodeCompost wrote: post #8

I have to admit LLMs are actually quite useful at generating code for me, but I am experienced enough to know what I want. I use it as a next-generation autocomplete.

This is the "whole thing" in a nutshell for me too. It's useful, speeds some things up, but I've been doing this a long time.

The state-of-the-art or medium-term future of the tooling doesn't feel apocalyptic in itself, but the macro forces, implications of scaling, and general reactions to it on all sides are a different story.

Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions

#66

Post by aresant »

This is an absolutely classic PR "submarine" effort to reframe the impact of AI

Paul Graham has mandatory essay on this - https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

(1) More than 50% of Americans at this point are more concerned about AI than excited for it - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/03/12/key-findi...

(2) Popular media is feeding into this zeitgeist with headlines like - "Prepare for an AI jobs apocalypse" eg - https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/05/14/prepare-for-an-...

(3) There is a bright line between these articles and growing concern / pushback on the development of new data centers with both moratoriums and significant municipal cancellations.

(4) Perhaps more materially the architects of AI are being challenged directly - in April Sam Altman's home was (a) bombed and then (b) shot at and weeks later the entire industry was just taken to task by The Pope! himself calling for acknowledgement of human limitation, grace, and dignity.

(5) Meanwhile Sam and others are reframing including launching a new foundation to "increase quality of life and individual freedoms for people around the world" and pivoting messaging to AI "accelerating everyone in achieving their goals" https://x.com/sama/status/2059677202917331431 & https://x.com/sama/status/2057218997503086888

Is this because the architects don't believe AI will be as disruptive as planned or . . . ?

Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions

#67

Post by AlexandrB »

So in the span of 2 years we've gone from "AI will be our new God and solve all of our problems" to "AI will replace all your jobs and make SaaS companies obsolete", to now "AI will have some impact on the job market - might be positive, might be negative - who can say?"

I'm filing this right next to "blockchain for everything" and "we will all live in the metaverse" as evidence that most of these people are full of shit and don't understand much outside of their area of expertise (if they even understand that). I can't believe the level of credulous hype around this stuff. At least AI is a useful technology compared to what we saw with "The Metaverse".

Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions

#68

Post by adamiscool8 »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #61
tunesmith wrote: post #30

Unfortunately it will take longer for our bosses to walk it back. I feel like I'm fighting the battle daily, telling execs what kind of work LLMs do not replace... it's very slippery, they keep on doing the rhetorical texas two-step - I don't think they even realize they're doing it. We communicate that LLM is amplifying, they hear it can replace. "No, we need humans to help with specs" "But AI can help with that." "…

> "But only help, they can't come up with the idea." "Sure they can, we can just ask them." I've had multiple instances now where AI left to it's own devices has solved a tricky problem that I honestly didn't think it was capable of. I routinely have them design their own experiment loops, learn from each round and iterate on the process. Multiple times it has lead to a needle moving change with no need for human int…

Can you give a specific example, ideally that would not have been solved by people-hours amounting to less than the token costs?

Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions

#69

Post by 2dfds »

AlexandrB wrote: post #67

So in the span of 2 years we've gone from "AI will be our new God and solve all of our problems" to "AI will replace all your jobs and make SaaS companies obsolete", to now "AI will have some impact on the job market - might be positive, might be negative - who can say?" I'm filing this right next to "blockchain for everything" and "we will all live in the metaverse" as evidence that most of these people are full of…

" as evidence that most of these people are full of shit and don't understand much outside of their area of expertise "

Its interesting isnt it? That many humans dont seem to understand that unless you know a thing well, perhaps you should shut up and not comment.

How can Dario and Sam credibly say we are going to automate X, Y, Z job when they've never done it in their lives? Its like the idiots on here talking down on accountants - unless you've done the job and prove you understand the mechanics: shush. Dont talk about stuff you have zero clue about. I see this time and time again in posts related to finance - just shut up and stop creating noise.

Re: Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions

#70

Post by treis »

andy99 wrote: post #62
datakan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It tells you a lot about your execs and how little they care, either for their employees or their customers. The quarterly profits are their God and they will worship at the altar of the stock price. Instead of finding ways to make AI enhance their employees and make them more productive, they immediately jump to ways to eliminate employees. It's the opposite of a growth mentallity. I'd love for these executives to s…

I've never seen a company punished for doing the right thing, caring for humans and providing a good work environment. We’ll see how this goes over but I disagree. You don’t have to look hard in tech, especially a few years ago, to find groups of coddled “workers”, doing very little or at least doing what they want instead of what a business and customers want. This paradoxically ended up creating toxic work environm…

This tracks and IMHO some of the disconnect between technology innovation and productivity is that engineers are soaking up the excess by working less. They're not banging out more code/functionality because by and large that isn't rewarded
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