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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

#971

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

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…

ZIRP jobs, n., jobs the compensation for which is derived from zero interest loans, often in the form of venture capital, instead of reserves, profits or other sources

"When interest rates return to normal levels, the ZIRP jobs will disappear." -- Wall Street analyst

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

#972

Post by jayd16 »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #771
bawolff wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reistically its because layoffs have a high reputational cost. AI provides an excuse that lets companies do lay offs without suffering the reputation hit. In essence AI hype makes layoffs cheaper. Doesnt really matter if AI actually works or not.

I would dispute, that there is no reputation cost, when you replace human work with LLMs.

It's not about consumer reputation, it's about the financial reputation. Slashing headcount can look desperate. AI makes it sound innovative, or at least that's the idea.

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

#973

Post by famouswaffles »

hansmayer wrote: post #805
madaxe_again wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the dot-com bubble never happened.

We're talking technology adoption here, no need to sidetrack (although I would argue, the bubble of technology sector burning 200B to produce 10B in revenue will be so much more painful). Back in the day everyone was running to do something on the web, commercial or not, be it out of enthusiasm, greed, noble aspirations, art or even criminal (warez, anyone?). I won't even mention the iPhone moment here. Compare that…

>Compare that to five years into GenAI hype, where is the massive adoption

ChatGPT was the 5th most visited site in April. So yeah, lots of adoption.

https://x.com/Similarweb/status/1920725435979034861

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

#974

Post by rglover »

esperent wrote: post #928
rglover wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO this is dead on. AI is a hell of a scapegoat for companies that want to save face and pretend that their success wasn't because of cheap money being pumped into them. And in a world addicted to status games, that's a gift from the heavens.

ZIRP is an American thing? In that case maybe we could try comparisons with the job markets in other developed Western countries that didn't have this policy. If it was because of ZIRP, then their job markets should show clearly different patterns.

ZIRP was a central banking thing, not just an American phenomenon. At least in the tech industry, the declines we're seeing in job opportunities are a result of capital being more expensive for VCs, meaning less investments are made (both in new and existing businesses), meaning there's less cash to hire and expand with. It just felt like the norm because ZIRP ran more or less uninterrupted for 10 years.

You're right that we should see comparisons in other developed countries, but with SV being the epicenter of it all, you'd expect the fallout to at least appear more dramatic in the U.S.

And an overwhelming number of (focusing exclusively on the U.S.) tech "businesses" weren't businesses (i.e., little to no profitability). At best they were failed experiments, and at worst, tax write-offs for VCs.

So, what looked like a booming industry (in the literal, "we have a working, profitable, cash-flowing business here" sense) was actually just companies being flooded with investment cash that they were eager to spend in pursuit of rapid growth. Some found profitability, many did not.

Again, IMO, AI isn't so much the cause as it is the bandage over the wound of unprofitability.

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

#975

Post by causal »

sfblah wrote: post #873
causal wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it's hard to pin down any job that's been eliminated by AI even after years of having LLMs. I'm sure it will happen. It just seems like the trajectory of intelligence defies any simple formula.

I literally am in the process of firing someone who we no longer need because of efficiencies tied to GenAI. I work at a top-10 tech company. So, there you go. That's one job.

That's really interesting, can you offer any insight on the type of role this efficiency made unnecessary or why firing made more sense than augmenting?

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

#976

Post by latentsea »

jameslk wrote: post #512
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…

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,…

It's still not 2030 yet. It could still happen.

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

#977

Post by throw234234234 »

lukev wrote: post #307
idkwhattocallme wrote: post #23

I worked at two different $10B+ market cap companies during ZIRP. I recall in most meetings over half of the knowledge workers attending were superfluous. I mean, we hired someone on my team to attend cross functional meetings because our calendars were literally too full to attend. Why could we do that? Because the company was growing and hiring someone to attend meetings wasn't going to hurt the skyrocketing stock.…

Whenever I think about AI and labor, I can't help thinking about David Graeber's [Bullshit Jobs]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs ). And there's multiple confounding factors at play. Yes, lots of jobs are bullshit, so maybe AI is a plausible excuse to downside and gain efficiency. But also the dynamic that causes the existence of bullshit jobs hasn't gone away. In fact, assuming AI does actually provide m…

Its hard to automate something that is hard to define, so I see the productive jobs/workers being punished by AI moreso than those jobs. Generally I see anecdotally:

- Value creators (i.e. the ones historically carrying companies with the 80%/20% rule) generally are the ones cautious and/or fearful of AI. The ones that carried most of the company. Their output is measurable and definable so able to be automated.

- The people in the jobs you mention in your post conversely are usually the ones most excited about AI. The ones in meetings all day, in the corporate machine. By definition their job is already not well defined anyway - IMV this is harder to automate. They are often there for other reasons other than "productive output" - e.g. compliance, nepotism, stakeholder management, etc.

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

#978

Post by throw234234234 »

sevensor wrote: post #12

What AI is going to wipe out is white collar jobs where people sleepwalk through the working day and carelessly half ass every task. In 2025, we can get LLMs to do that for us. Unfortunately, the kind of executive who thinks AI is a legitimate replacement for actual work does not recognize the difference. I expect to see the more credulous CEOs dynamiting their companies as a result. Whether the rest of us can surviv…

Nah - those people have the bandwidth/time to justify their value in my experience. They are also usually the people managing the productive.

Its the people that are constantly working, and too busy to be seen, producing output and keeping the lights on who don't have time for the "games" who AI is going for. Their jobs are easier to define since they are productive and do "something" - so its easy to market AI products for these use cases. After all these people are usually not the people in charge of the purse strings in most organisations for better or worse.

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

#979

Post by throwaway2037 »

catigula wrote: post #448
renewiltord wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The funny thing is that you're not wrong and this is yet another feather in the cap of "foreign labor are literal scabs" argument.

This comment made me laugh. I have not seen the term "scab" since the late 1980s when there were a bunch of union strikes in my area. It is funny to see it applied to white collar (office) workers.

Edit: I found this funny quote describing a scab from the early 1900s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_London#Diatribe_about_sca...

    > After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.

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

#980

Post by aitchnyu »

acrooks wrote: post #695
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…

I wonder if some of this output will take a while to be visible en masse. For example, I founded a SaaS company late last year which has been growing very quickly. We are track to pass $1M ARR before the company's first birthday. We are fully bootstrapped, 100% founder owned. There are 2 of us. And we feel confident we could keep up this pace of growth for quite a while without hiring or taking capital. (Of course, t…

Do existing teams (and ossified office politics) benefit from n-times faster devs? I witnessed (implied) Gantt charts so shaped that shrinking dev activities won't shrink the chart.
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