Also Brynjolfsson: It will likely impact entry-level jobs. There are huge implications for business and the economy, including some increases in living standards, but also, potentially, job disruption. We must act now to address this gap. We can’t just sit back and wait for the tsunami to hit us.
Also Brynjolfsson: If companies don’t hire people at the base of the pyramid, then they’re not going to have those people later when they need them. Now, AI can do a lot of those basic tasks. Some companies, such as law firms and investment banks, are not hiring as many people at the base. In the short run, I can see that logic, but, in a few years, where are they going to have the most experienced people? So they need to think harder about that.
So there's that. Basically what he's hoping is if everyone does what he recommends re: regulation and policy, then maybe the job apocalypse will become unlikely.
I think we are going to see a growing trend of communications opposite of what we've seen in the last 4 years; no more AI doomerism to avoid datacenter bans. Surly everyone is Dario's circle is telling him to keep his mouth shut.
Something that gets ignored is that we're already facing a serious decline in the workforce as a result of the fertility crisis. If we can automate some jobs at the same time as people leave the workforce en masse, we can avoid a catasrophe.
He clearly states that it worries him and he made a public letter.
The job disruption is real and it will be an job apocalypse for plenty of people.
If a company is now paying for ai tokens and you now have 5-20% higher cost but you are relevant more efficient, you will reduce your team by 5-20%.
It is already a job apocalypse for people who learned language and no longer get a job for translating or text analysis. People who want to be an illustrator have a job apocalpyse.
And we have not even SEEN what it will look like in 4-14 years. Physical AI / Robotic is progressing like crazy too.
So a guy who runs worker displacement company tries to say we're not bad? It literally has a page where it shows how much of your company can be automated.
AI companies: give us money, think of all the jobs will be able to destroy and whose value we will somehow manage to capture!
General society: [notices this is what AI companies are explicitly trying to do.]
AI companies: don't worry about it bro, it'll all be fine -- better than fine in fact. And not just for us, promise! Actually we'll somehow create even more jobs, while still being able to massively increase productivity, even though this is contradictory and impossible. Because nothing is impossible with AI!
There's so many issues piling up on this mountain of steaming issues. I can't even tell you what a nightmare it is to try to get each company's idea of agentic support working, it's truly dystopian confusion/psychosis.
>Brynjolfsson predicts that demand for experienced workers such as senior coders will still be high even if AI takes on more routine knowledge and coding work in the future
All well and good, but the age old question. How will people get experience if entry level is AI ? But maybe for a preview look at COBOL, there is huge demand for experience people.
You get experience by having an active interest, doing projects on your own, and not needing it spoonfed to you. When I was in college we learned some basic data structures and made an employee time clock program. I learned far more from the stuff I fiddled around with on my own time. I started tinkering in elementary school. The students that had done nothing with comp sci their entire lives and just wanted to make video games dropped out in 2 weeks.
> But maybe for a preview look at COBOL, there is huge demand for experience people.
Is there? I actually looked into this once, and nearly all the Cobol work I saw mentioned was being outsourced to software consulting companies in India. And it didn't sound like an especially good job there, either.
If anyone is genuinely paying disgusting amounts of money for deep Cobol expertise, I'd love to see any public evidence that this is happening on any significant scale!
To this age old question the answer is between the lines that by the time seniors are gone AI would be fully taking over, at least by their assumptions.
And maybe due to falling population by then whoever left would have something useful to do nonetheless.
Brynjolfsson: an AI “job apocalypse” is unlikely.
Also Brynjolfsson: It will likely impact entry-level jobs. There are huge implications for business and the economy, including some increases in living standards, but also, potentially, job disruption. We must act now to address this gap. We can’t just sit back and wait for the tsunami to hit us.
Also Brynjolfsson: If companies don’t hire people at the base of the pyramid, then they’re not going to have those people later when they need them. Now, AI can do a lot of those basic tasks. Some companies, such as law firms and investment banks, are not hiring as many people at the base. In the short run, I can see that logic, but, in a few years, where are they going to have the most experienced people? So they need to think harder about that.
So there's that. Basically what he's hoping is if everyone does what he recommends re: regulation and policy, then maybe the job apocalypse will become unlikely.
I think we are going to see a growing trend of communications opposite of what we've seen in the last 4 years; no more AI doomerism to avoid datacenter bans. Surly everyone is Dario's circle is telling him to keep his mouth shut.
Something that gets ignored is that we're already facing a serious decline in the workforce as a result of the fertility crisis. If we can automate some jobs at the same time as people leave the workforce en masse, we can avoid a catasrophe.
Those are the wrong jobs. AI cannot yet be a nurse, for example.
Talk about learning the wrong lesson
He clearly states that it worries him and he made a public letter.
The job disruption is real and it will be an job apocalypse for plenty of people.
If a company is now paying for ai tokens and you now have 5-20% higher cost but you are relevant more efficient, you will reduce your team by 5-20%.
It is already a job apocalypse for people who learned language and no longer get a job for translating or text analysis. People who want to be an illustrator have a job apocalpyse.
And we have not even SEEN what it will look like in 4-14 years. Physical AI / Robotic is progressing like crazy too.
So a guy who runs worker displacement company tries to say we're not bad? It literally has a page where it shows how much of your company can be automated.
AI companies: give us money, think of all the jobs will be able to destroy and whose value we will somehow manage to capture!
General society: [notices this is what AI companies are explicitly trying to do.]
AI companies: don't worry about it bro, it'll all be fine -- better than fine in fact. And not just for us, promise! Actually we'll somehow create even more jobs, while still being able to massively increase productivity, even though this is contradictory and impossible. Because nothing is impossible with AI!
Zombocom is proof of a time traveling AI god being real.
There's so many issues piling up on this mountain of steaming issues. I can't even tell you what a nightmare it is to try to get each company's idea of agentic support working, it's truly dystopian confusion/psychosis.
Paper owned by billionaire who is trying to wipe out pesky humans publishes article saying trust us you’ll be fine
If the number of jobs stays constant but a lot of those jobs have been downgraded to gig labor without benefits, that's bad.
If the number of jobs stays constant but a lot of those jobs have been downgraded to fungible operators of AI, that's very bad.
>Brynjolfsson predicts that demand for experienced workers such as senior coders will still be high even if AI takes on more routine knowledge and coding work in the future
All well and good, but the age old question. How will people get experience if entry level is AI ? But maybe for a preview look at COBOL, there is huge demand for experience people.
You get experience by having an active interest, doing projects on your own, and not needing it spoonfed to you. When I was in college we learned some basic data structures and made an employee time clock program. I learned far more from the stuff I fiddled around with on my own time. I started tinkering in elementary school. The students that had done nothing with comp sci their entire lives and just wanted to make video games dropped out in 2 weeks.
> But maybe for a preview look at COBOL, there is huge demand for experience people.
Is there? I actually looked into this once, and nearly all the Cobol work I saw mentioned was being outsourced to software consulting companies in India. And it didn't sound like an especially good job there, either.
If anyone is genuinely paying disgusting amounts of money for deep Cobol expertise, I'd love to see any public evidence that this is happening on any significant scale!
To this age old question the answer is between the lines that by the time seniors are gone AI would be fully taking over, at least by their assumptions.
And maybe due to falling population by then whoever left would have something useful to do nonetheless.