Comment by FloorEgg
3 days ago
How can the AI be lacking in results and also at the same time responsible for layoffs and slowing of hiring?
Wouldn't it be one or the other?
3 days ago
How can the AI be lacking in results and also at the same time responsible for layoffs and slowing of hiring?
Wouldn't it be one or the other?
You replace half of a team with AI. Salary cost go immediately down, but team output can keep up for some time. You don't see the technical debt, the security issues and the prompt injection which will result in wrong invoices being sent. In six months suddenly there will be a big problem, but this quarter a lot of shareholders are happy about the cost-cutting. You may even be promoted by the time shit hits the fan, and it won't even be your problem anymore.
On the other hand there probably also is a general correction in the market after the covid hiring spree.
Almost sounds like the "walking ghost phase" during radiation poisoning...
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1975oj/whats_ha...
This is such a good metaphor.
Fantastic analogy. I dare say it applies to our current economy as well.
You assume CEOs are completely rational actors.
The reality is most of them are so divorced from reality that they think they are infallible and AI will pick up the slack because they want it to be true.
No, layoffs happen due to leadership’s expectations. It’s never been about reality, layoffs and both massive hiring to ramp teams are based on vibes.
The lack of results is felt by those using it to assist with their work daily.
And specifically, their expectations as to what will positively impact the stock price. Shareholder value this quarter is more important than keeping the company afloat next quarter.
It can be both if for the majority of layoffs, AI is just a scapegoat to act as cover for cuts made for financial reasons or offshoring and not the actual cause.
But then you’d expect the trend to self correct in the long run. AI actually does seem to replacing customer-service and CS jobs effectively.
From what I've seen many efforts to replace roles such as customer service with AI are being rolled back or downscaled due to intolerably high error rates and general incapability. While these segments won't come out unscathed I don't think the actual impact will end up being as severe as feared.
5 replies →
Might be true, but unfortunately, we need to pay for rent/mortgage/groceries in the short run.
Executives don't need actual results or data to lay people off.
AI could be a huge net benefit, and justify large layoffs.
AI could be a huge short-term benefit, justify layoffs now, so long as you (the exec doing the laying off) don't have to worry about the long term
AI could have middling net benefit, but be a great excuse to justify layoffs now. In this scenario, the people laid off and those that remain bear the cost (one, losing their jobs; those that remain, burning out with the extra workload) etc etc, many scenarios to consider...
When Block laid off 40% of their staff Jack Dorsey said it was because of AI. Whether or not you believe him is a different question.
He went all in on block chain, so it would be consistent with previous hyped tech. In this case I would believe him.
Not if the actual vs stated reasons for the layoffs have nothing to do with AI.
Organisations happy to reduce costs, perhaps with greater output but with lower quality?
and surely, all of those companies are being entirely truthful about the reason for the layoffs.
can happen at the same time when businesses speculatively fire workers to replace with AI. The lack of results might bite them in the ass and the bubble might pop. Or not, but they are going long on their AI position
AI hype -> layoffs -> AI underperforms -> ????
Hilariously, it's the exact same playbook as the big third-world-country-outsourcing hype from a few years ago.