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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

#851

Post by oblio »

Slow_Hand wrote: post #846
jameslk wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keynes suggested that by 2030, we’d be working 15 hour workweeks, with the rest of the time used for leisure. Instead, we chose consumption, and helicopter money gave us bullshit jobs so we could keep buying more bullshit. This is fairly evident by the fact when the helicopter money runs out, all the bullshit jobs get cut. AI may give us more efficiency, but it will be filled with more bullshit jobs and consumption,…

Not to undercut your point - because you’re largely correct - but this is my reality. I have a decent-paying job in which I work roughly 15 hrs a week. Sometimes more when work scales up. That said, I’m not what you’d call a high-earning person (I earn < 100k) I simply live within my means and do my best to curb lifestyle creep. In this way, Keynes’ vision is a reality, but it’s a mindset and we also have to know whe…

You're lucky. Most companies don't accept that. Frequently, even when they have part time arrangements, the incentives are such that middle managers are incentivized to squeeze you (including squeezing you out), despite company policies and HR mandates.

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

#852

Post by oblio »

godelski wrote: post #672
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I basically agree with you, and I think the thing that is missing from a bunch of responses that disagree is that it seems fairly apparent now that AI has largely hit a brick wall in terms of the benefits of scaling. That is, most folks were pretty astounded by the gains you could get from just stuffing more training data into these models, but like someone who argues a 15 year old will be 50 feet tall based on the l…

> it seems fairly apparent now that AI has largely hit a brick wall in terms of the benefits of scaling What's annoying is plenty of us (researchers) predicted this and got laughed at. Now that it's happening, it's just quiet. I don't know about the rest, but I spoke up because I didn't want to hit a brick wall, I want to keep going! I still want to keep going! But if accurate predictions (with good explanations) are…

> What's annoying is plenty of us (researchers) predicted this and got laughed at. Now that it's happening, it's just quiet.

Those people always do that. Shouting about cryptocurrencies and NFTs from the rooftops 3-4 years ago, now completely gone.

I suspect they're the same people, basically get rich quick schemers.

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

#853

Post by nhod »

dgfitz wrote: post #679
tim333 wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I foresee programers replaced by AI and the people who programed becoming pointy haired bosses to the AI.

I for see that when people only employ AI for programming, it quickly hits the point where they train on their own (usually wrong) code and it spirals into an implosion. When kids stop learning to code for real, who writes GCC v38? This whole LLM is just the next bitcoin/nft. People had a lot of video cards and wanted to find a new use for them. In my small brain it’s so obvious.

i dunno, i have gotten tons of real work done with LLM’s. i just had o3 edit a contract and swap out pieces of it to make it work with SOW’s instead of embed the terms directly in the contract. i used to have to do that myself and have a lawyer review it. (i’ve been working with contracts for 30 years, i know enough now to know most basic contract law even though IANAL.) i’ve vibe coded a whole bunch of little things i would never have done myself or hired someone to do. i have had them extract data in seconds that would have taken forever. there is without question real utility in LLM’s and they are also without question getting better very fast.

to compare that to NFT’s is pretty disingenuous. i don’t know anyone who has ever accomplished anything with an NFT. (i’m happy to be wrong about that, and i have yet to find a single example).

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

#854

Post by whstl »

tdeck wrote: post #416

Maybe someone can help me wrap my head around this in a different way, because here's how I see it. If these tools are really making people so productive, shouldn't it be painfully obvious in companies' output? For example, if these AI coding tools were an amazing productivity boost in the end, we'd expect to see software companies shipping features and fixes faster than ever before. There would be a huge burst in in…

Any boost of productivity in the coding part is quickly absorbed by other inefficiencies in the software-making process, unfortunately.

AI also helps immensely in creating those other inefficiencies.

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

#855

Post by Slow_Hand »

oblio wrote: post #851
Slow_Hand wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to undercut your point - because you’re largely correct - but this is my reality. I have a decent-paying job in which I work roughly 15 hrs a week. Sometimes more when work scales up. That said, I’m not what you’d call a high-earning person (I earn < 100k) I simply live within my means and do my best to curb lifestyle creep. In this way, Keynes’ vision is a reality, but it’s a mindset and we also have to know whe…

You're lucky. Most companies don't accept that. Frequently, even when they have part time arrangements, the incentives are such that middle managers are incentivized to squeeze you (including squeezing you out), despite company policies and HR mandates.

I am lucky. I work for a very small consultancy (3 people plus occassional contractors) and am paid a fraction of our net income.

The arrangement was arrived at because the irregular income schedule makes an hourly wage or a salary a poor option for everyone involved. I’m grateful to work for a company where the owners value not only my time and worth but also value a similar work routine themselves.

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

#856

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

LeonB wrote: post #605
pmlnr wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keynes was talking about work in every sense,including house chore. We're well below 15 hours of house chores by now, so that part became true.

Washing machines created a revolution where we could now expend 1/10th of the human labour to wash the same amount of clothes as before. We now have more than 10 times as much clothes to wash. I don’t know if it’s induced demand, revealed preference or Jevon’s paradox, maybe all 3.

> We now have more than 10 times as much clothes to wash.

OK, but I doubt we're washing 10 times as much clothes, unless are people wearing them for one hour between washes...

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

#857

Post by vhcr »

SirHumphrey wrote: post #657
throwaway2037 wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One place where AI is being disruptive is research: where researchers are applying models in novel ways and making legitimate advances in math, medicine and other fields. Great point. The perfect example: (From Wiki): > In 2024, Hassabis and John M. Jumper were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their AI research contributions for protein structure prediction. AFAIK: They are talking about DeepMind Al…

I think AlphaFold is where current AI terminology starts breaking down. Because in some real sense, AlphaFold is primarily a statistical model - yes, it's interesting that they developed it using ML techniques, but from the use standpoint it's little different than perturbation based black boxes that were used before that for 20 years. Yes, it's an example of ML used in science (other examples include NN based force…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect

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

#858

Post by asadotzler »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #732
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I basically agree with you, and I think the thing that is missing from a bunch of responses that disagree is that it seems fairly apparent now that AI has largely hit a brick wall in terms of the benefits of scaling. That is, most folks were pretty astounded by the gains you could get from just stuffing more training data into these models, but like someone who argues a 15 year old will be 50 feet tall based on the l…

I dont see any wall. Gemini 2.5 and o3/o4 are incredible improvements. Gen AI is miles ahead of where it was a year ago which was miles ahead of where it was 2 years ago.

The improvements have less to do with scaling than adding new techniques like better fine tuning and reinforcement learning. The infinite scaling we were promised, that only required more content and more compute to reach god tier has indeed hit a wall.

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

#859

Post by ccorcos »

DenisM wrote: post #839
ccorcos wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you so concerned about rapid onset of we haven’t seen any significant change in the (USA) unemployment rate? And there are some laws of nature that are relevant such as supply-demand economics. Technology often makes things cheaper which unlocks more demand. For example, I’m sure many small businesses would love to build custom software to help them operate but it’s too expensive.

It’s an interesting argument, thanks. A good analogy would be web development transition from c to java to php to Wordpress. I feel like it did make web sites creation for small business more accessible. OTOH a parallel trend was also mass-scale production of industry-specific platforms, such as Yahoo Shopping. It’s not clear to me which trend won in the end.

It’s possible that both are true. “Why” questions tend to be mathematically overdetermined. There are many correct explanations (equations) and fewer variables than equations.

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

#860

Post by c0redump »

sbierwagen wrote: post #519
catigula wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't even make sense. What corporations do you think will exist in this world? You're not going to sell me your SaaS when I can rent AIs to make faster cheaper IP that I actually own to my exact specifications.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/30/ascended-economy/ Robot run iron mine that sells iron ore to a robot run steel mill that sells steel plate to a robot run heavy truck manufacturer that sells heavy trucks to robot run iron mines, etc etc. The material handling of heavy industry is already heavily automated, almost by definition. You just need to take out the last few people.

Except that robotics technology is completely different from LLMs? Comments of this flavor are such a tell that the commenter has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.
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