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The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI

economist.com

61–70 of 93 posts

Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI is basically irrelevant unless you're really feeling a time crunch and have little alternative Which is all of our industry. You're lucky if you're in a pocket outside of timr crunch.

I'm just describing what an actual career looks like beyond the first 5 years of grinding away at a startup and then giving into "the man" or whatever. I guess it's true that corporate doesn't like hiring junior devs, but I'm not sure it was ever any other way. I'm not seeing where the fire is at. Corporate won't pay you SV wages either, but it's still respectable six-figures. You probably don't get stock either, but…

ok, explain a potential day in the life of this senior, where they are not required to code with AI.

Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just describing what an actual career looks like beyond the first 5 years of grinding away at a startup and then giving into "the man" or whatever. I guess it's true that corporate doesn't like hiring junior devs, but I'm not sure it was ever any other way. I'm not seeing where the fire is at. Corporate won't pay you SV wages either, but it's still respectable six-figures. You probably don't get stock either, but…

ok, explain a potential day in the life of this senior, where they are not required to code with AI.

I'm clearly not going to convince you with that attitude, but hopefully others reading can benefit from the long view.

Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI

#64
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to 'BPO'? cool kids?

BPO means the US company is outsourcing to an Indian company. A Global Capability Center (GCC) means it's a US company subsidiary in India.

Aka an office or a department in another location where payrates are less than the company median. Coming up with these initialisms must be hard work, I doubt AI is that clever.

Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI

#65
post #26
post #2

From a recent article in The Economist. It turns out that once again many of the jobs that people predicted would be eliminated by AI have instead received a boost, at least for now. This closely follows another recent report on how Indian BPO firms are surprisingly thriving due to AI. "Moreover, AI is helping offshore workers in the Philippines do new, more complex jobs. They are picking up work training AI models o…

> Hospitals in America are increasingly outsourcing the checking of insurance eligibility and filing of medical records to Filipinos packing AI tools So, insurance claims are handled by people who operate in different legal system and by unaccountable undererministic system. And people are pressured to perform fast. This is not about "automating complex task". This is about "create accountability sink for fraud we wa…

The insurance company is still liable in US courts for products or services sold in the US, just like any other business is liable regardless of where or who does the work.

Also, pretty sure denial of coverage letters have to be endorsed by US licensed doctors and pharmacists, at least in any half decent state.

Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global capability centers where they basically do the business processes and work for US/EU companies for fraction the cost.

So basically like ghost kitchens for white-collar work, with an extra timezone difference?

Yes exactly like that.

Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI

#67
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your average devs are wrong more than the AI is at this point.

This is not about development. This is about rubber stamping insurance denial by an unaccountable system.

If you sell something in the US, and a customer sues you, going to court and saying you are not accountable because the work was performed by someone in another jurisdiction is not going to go well for you.

The only time that works if you have no assets or presence in the US, or I guess you have an in with the US president.

Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI

#68
post #38

People have a bad intuition about economic mechanisms, but that does not mean that AI won't cause huge regressive effects. The transition from independent artisans to factory work didn't cause massive unemployment. But it cause the former artisans to lose out, because they no longer had the bargaining power they had before - their work was now a commodity. This resulted in "Engel's pause", a period in which wages sta…

Also worth pointing out Anthropic is a sponsor of The Economist. Probably muddies the water some more.

A "sponsor"? As in buys some ads? The Economist's take on AI is hardly uncritical.

Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do these GCC's have great work life balance? They may be better that the service companies, and may pay better, but WLB is shitty everywhere in India as far as I can tell. As an example, the death of Ernest & Young employee Anna Sebastian sparked a lot of discussion in Indian media since it was attributed to work pressure.[1] Another example I recently heard was a USA Texas based company called CorroHealth suddenly c…

WLB is truly awful in India. People are stretched and stressed out at work, in addition to awful civic conditions which makes travelling to and from work a nightmare. I am not sure how long this can continue.

It does depend on the company and your role. Working a senior role at a FAANG in India is much nicer than junior roles in the local WITCHes (Wipro Infosys etc), which are notorious for their crap salaries and shitty labour practices.

Re: The Philippines' big offshoring industry is growing despite AI

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok, explain a potential day in the life of this senior, where they are not required to code with AI.

I'm clearly not going to convince you with that attitude, but hopefully others reading can benefit from the long view.

fwiw, I was challenging you because your assumptions are not at all what I see around in teams across companies I work with. so was taking the other side and trying to probe further.
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