Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

701–710 of 1001 posts

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

#701

Post by tim333 »

timacles wrote: post #687
tim333 wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think something Keynes got wrong there and much AI job discussion ignores is people like working, subject to the job being fun. Look at the richest people with no need to work - Musk, Buffett etc. Still working away, often well past retirement age with no need for the money. Keynes himself, wealth and probably with tenure working away on his theories. In the UK you can quite easily do nothing by going on disability…

What percentage of people would you say like working for fun? Would you really claim they make up a significant portion of society? Even myself, work a job that I enjoy building things that I’m good at, that is almost stress free, and after 10-15 years find that I would much rather spend time with my family or even spend a day doing nothing rather than spend another hour doing work for other people. the work never st…

Well - I guess you are maybe typical in quite liking the work but wanting to do less hours? I saw some research that hunter gatherers work about 20 hours a week - maybe that's an optimum.

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

#702

Post by xorcist »

nxm wrote: post #689
pydry wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump didnt kick off the layoffs. It was the war with Russia that drove the fed to raise interest rates in 2022 - a measure that was intended to curb inflation triggered by spikes in the prices of economic inputs (gas, oil, fertilizer, etc.). The tech layoffs started later that year. Widespread job cuts are an intended effect of raising interest rates - more unemployed = less spending = keeps a lid on inflation. AI i…

2 trillion in unnecessary Covid related spending when Covid impact was winding down was the key reason for inflation. "$2000 checks!" was the campaign slogan

People sometimes conveniently forgets that inflation historically has taken some 12-24 months to trickle through the economic system. That was the case this time, too. And the first inflationary impulses, famous for being "transitory", was actually before the Russian invasion of Eastern Europe.

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

#703

Post by tim333 »

trinix912 wrote: post #671
tim333 wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think something Keynes got wrong there and much AI job discussion ignores is people like working, subject to the job being fun. Look at the richest people with no need to work - Musk, Buffett etc. Still working away, often well past retirement age with no need for the money. Keynes himself, wealth and probably with tenure working away on his theories. In the UK you can quite easily do nothing by going on disability…

The reality of most people is that they need to work to financially sustain themselves. Yes, there are people who just like what they do and work regardless, but I think we shouldn't discount the majority which would drop their jobs or at least work less hours had it not been out of the need for money.

Although in democracies we've largely selected that system. I've been to socialist places - Cuba and Albania before communism collapsed where a lot of people didn't do much but were still housed and fed (not very well - ration books) but no one seems to want to vote that stuff in.

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

#704

Post by larrled »

frontfor wrote: post #686
pydry wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump didnt kick off the layoffs. It was the war with Russia that drove the fed to raise interest rates in 2022 - a measure that was intended to curb inflation triggered by spikes in the prices of economic inputs (gas, oil, fertilizer, etc.). The tech layoffs started later that year. Widespread job cuts are an intended effect of raising interest rates - more unemployed = less spending = keeps a lid on inflation. AI i…

I don’t believe the war specifically drove the Fed to raise interest rates. Inflation and asset prices have risen sharply a year prior to the war.

Biden credited the inflation to Putin, claiming that 70% was due to Putin’s price hikes.

That was not entirely true.

Trump’s pandemic spending (lockdowns, vaccines…), and subsequently Biden’s, but most importantly the curiously named Inflation Reduction Act were obvious drivers. You can’t stimulate an already overheated economy to the tune of 2 trillion without getting Larry Summers a bit worked up.

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

#705

Post by xorcist »

tim333 wrote: post #647
godelski wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet we're what? 5 years into "AI will replace programmers in 6 months"? 10 years into "we'll have self driving cars next year" We're 10 years into "it's just completely obvious that within 5 years deep learning is going to replace radiologists" Moravec's paradox strikes again and again. But this time it's different and it's completely obvious now, right?

Four years into people mocking "we'll have self driving cars next year" while they are on the street daily driving around SF.

They are self driving the same way a tram or subway can be self driving. They traffic a tightly bounded designated area. They're not competing with human drivers. Still a marvel of human engineering, just quite expensive compared with other forms of public transport. It just doesn't compete in the same space and likely never will.

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

#706

Post by bgwalter »

nxm wrote: post #689
pydry wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump didnt kick off the layoffs. It was the war with Russia that drove the fed to raise interest rates in 2022 - a measure that was intended to curb inflation triggered by spikes in the prices of economic inputs (gas, oil, fertilizer, etc.). The tech layoffs started later that year. Widespread job cuts are an intended effect of raising interest rates - more unemployed = less spending = keeps a lid on inflation. AI i…

2 trillion in unnecessary Covid related spending when Covid impact was winding down was the key reason for inflation. "$2000 checks!" was the campaign slogan

That's one of the factors. In Europe at least the other factor is high energy prices after the broken turbine theater and subsequent destruction of Nord Stream.

Prices and unemployment really started to rise after that. The EU buys overpriced LNG from the US, so the US is somewhat isolated from that. But the US is not isolated against the general economic downturn worldwide.

Politicians do not care. Merz, with barely 25% approval of the German population, continues the policies outlined by Hegseth during his visit to the EU. Trump still plays theater to appease his MAGA base, but Senators Rubio and Graham increasingly start holding the reins.

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

#707

Post by gwicks56 »

intended wrote: post #536
elif wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with autonomous vehicles, the narrative of imperceptibly slow incremental change about chasing 9's is still the zeitgeist despite an actual 10x improvement in homicidality compared to humans already existing. There is a lag in how humans are reacting to AI which is probably a reflexive aspect of human nature. There are so many strategies being employed to minimize progress in a technology which 3 years ago did not ex…

This is my favorite thing to point out from the day we started talking about autonomous vehicles on tech sites. If you took a Tesla or a Waymo and dropped into into a tier 2 city in India, it will stop moving. Driving data is cultural data, not data about pure physics. You will never get to full self driving, even with more processing power, because the underlying assumptions are incorrect. Doing more of the same thi…

"If you took a Tesla or a Waymo and dropped into into a tier 2 city in India, it will stop moving."

Lol. If you dropped the average westerner into Chennai, they would either: a) stop moving b) kill someone

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

#708

Post by hansmayer »

godelski wrote: post #588
digitcatphd wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yet we're what? 5 years into "AI will replace programmers in 6 months"? 10 years into "we'll have self driving cars next year" We're 10 years into "it's just completely obvious that within 5 years deep learning is going to replace radiologists" Moravec's paradox strikes again and again. But this time it's different and it's completely obvious now, right?

100% this. I always argue that groundbreaking technologies are clearly groundbreaking from the start. It is almost a bit like a film, if you have to struggle to get into it in the first few minutes, you may as well spare yourself watching the rest.

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

#709

Post by hansmayer »

jjani wrote: post #611
godelski wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet we're what? 5 years into "AI will replace programmers in 6 months"? 10 years into "we'll have self driving cars next year" We're 10 years into "it's just completely obvious that within 5 years deep learning is going to replace radiologists" Moravec's paradox strikes again and again. But this time it's different and it's completely obvious now, right?

> Yet we're what? 5 years into "AI will replace programmers in 6 months"? Realistically, we're 2.5 years into it at most.

No, the hype cycle started around 2019, slowly at first. The technology this is built with is more like 20 years old, so no, we are not 2.5 years at most really.

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

#710

Post by AvAn12 »

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.

Remember when RPA was going to replace everyone?
Post reply on HN