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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

#891

Post by dismalaf »

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 actual LLM part isn't much better than a year ago. What's better is that they've added additional logic and made it possible to intertwine traditional, expert-system style AI plus the power of the internet to augment LLMs so that they're actually useful.

This is an improvement for sure, but LLMs themselves are definitely hitting a wall. It was predicted that scaling alone would allow them to reach AGI level.

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

#892

Post by lowbloodsugar »

tim333 wrote: post #885
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?

It's like all the farmers soil shoveling jobs were stolen by tractors. People moved on to more interesting things.

In all previous such revolutions, humans were freed to do more productive work while the cost of goods came down. But that doesn’t mean the same is true this time. Now the revolution does not make physical tasks easier (like ploughing or spinning thread) but intellectual labor. This time, there are no jobs to go to, since those jobs are also done by AI.

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

#893

Post by Ray20 »

FabHK wrote: post #760
kergonath wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was extrapolating, as well. Going from children in the mines to the welfare state in a generation was quite something. Unfortunately, progress slowed down significantly for many reasons but I don’t think we should really blame Keynes for this. > We live in a time that the working class is unbelievably brainwashed and manipulated. I think it has always been that way. Looking through history, there are many examples…

> progress slowed down significantly for many reasons I think progress (in the sense of economic growth) was roughly in line with what Keynes expected. What he didn't expect is that people, instead of getting 10x the living standard with 1/3 the working hours, rather wanted to have 30x the living standard with the same working hours.

It's not really clear where he got this from.

Throughout human history, starting with the spread of agriculture, increased labor efficiency has always led to people consuming more, not to them working less.

Moreover, throughout the 20th century, we saw several periods in different countries when wages rose very rapidly - and this always led to a temporary average increase in hours worked. Because when a worker is told "I'll pay you 50% more" - the answer is usually not "Cool, I can work 30% less", but "Now I'm willing to work 50% more to get 2x of the pay".

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

#894

Post by xnx »

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.

> 5 years into "AI will replace programmers in 6 months"?

Programmers that don't use AI will get replaced by those that do. (no just by mandate, but by performance)

> 10 years into "we'll have self driving cars next year"

They're here now. Waymo does 250K paid rides/week.

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

#895

Post by [deleted] »

michaeldoron wrote: post #78

Every time an analyst gives the current state of AI-based tools as evidence supporting AI disruption being just a hype, I think of skeptics who dismissed the exponential growth of covid19 cases due to their initial low numbers. Putting that aside, how is this article called an analysis and not an opinion piece? The only analysis done here is asking a labor economist what conditions would allow this claim to hold, and…

[deleted]

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

#896

Post by steve_adams_86 »

perrygeo wrote: post #751
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…

Such an important point, I've seen and suspected the end of ZIRP being a much much greater influence on white collar work than we suspect. AI is going to take all the negative press but the flow of capital is ultimately what determines how the business works, which determines what software gets built. Conway's law 101. The white collar bloodbath is more of a haircut to shed waste accumulated during the excesses of ZI…

Is it negative press for AI, or is it convincing some investors that it’s actually causing a tectonic shift in the workforce and economy? It could be positive in some sense. Though ultimately negative, because the outcomes are unlikely to reflect a continuation of the perceived impact or imaginary progress of the technology.

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

#897

Post by chipsrafferty »

tim333 wrote: post #701
timacles wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of people like the work they do, but they also like the things they do when they aren't working - more.

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

#898

Post by icedchai »

Nasrudith wrote: post #503
icedchai wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked at smaller companies where half the people in the meetings were just there because they had nothing else to do. Lots of "I'm a fly on the wall" and "I'll be a note taker" types. Most of them contributed nothing.

The first mistake is thinking that contribution must be in the form of output instead of ingestion. Of course meetings aren't often the most efficient form of doing so. More being forced to listen (at least officially) so there isn't an excuse.

This is true, but generally speaking there should be more people "producing" than "ingesting." This is often not the case. Most meetings are useless, and this has become much worse in modern times. Example: agile "scrum" and its daily stand ups, which inevitably turn into status reports.

At some point in the 2000's, every manager decided they needed weekly 1:1's, resulting in even more meetings. Many of these are entirely ineffective. As one boss told me, "I've been told I need to have 1:1's, so I'm having them!" I literally sat next to him and talked every day, but it was a good time to go for coffee...

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

#900

Post by simonsarris »

brfox wrote: post #875
niuzeta wrote: post #847

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FRED continues to amaze me with the kind of data they have availab.e

That's from Indeed. And, Indeed has fewer job postings overall [ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUS ]. Should we normalize the software jobs with the total number of Indeed postings? Is Indeed getting less popular or more popular over this time period? Data is complicated

Look at that graph again. It's indexed to 100 in Feb 1, 2020. It's now at 106. In other words, after all the pandemic madness, the total number of job postings on indeed is slightly larger than it was before, not smaller.

But for software, it's a lot smaller.

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