[LurkandComment]

AI isn't about jobs and efficiency, it's about having a stronger position over labor. AI is useful, in most cases this makes existing labor better. The number of jobs that can be actually automated by it is much lower than people percieve. But the narrative is what matters. The temporary displacement and uncertainty of labor is what matters. It creates a weaker position for labor.

[dc10tonite]

This is an excellent point. It should also be noted that the people who want a better position over labor largely write mediocre memos, make bad decisions, barely listen in meetings, and slap together powerpoints for said meetings. As it turns out, AI can also automate the work of thousands of shitty execs and upper management. If only we could apply that pressure in their direction...

[general1726]

I mean there might be a market for an AI model which takes i.e. Redmine (or any project managing tool) and will direct developer to work on this or that task, automatically split tasks into smaller ones or request from stake holder to better explain what is requested on vague tasks and so on.

[formerly_proven]

> It creates a weaker position for labor.

Is this worth >1 trillion in capex?

For reference, less than 100 billion have been invested into fusion energy — since 1950.

[UncleMeat]

Total wages in the us is ~11T per year. Depress the labor force a little bit, force up unemployment a little bit, and halt wage growth and you are seeing trillions in annual savings for the bosses just in the US alone.

[fifilura]

Could be? What is your take?

What does fusion energy have to do with labor cost?

Obviously AI is technology that has its own value.

But keeping the labor cost down by just a few percent (and handing that money to company profits) has tremendous leverage.

[tallclair]

It doesn’t need to be able to entirely automate a job to replace jobs though. If it enables one worker to be 10 times as productive, then the company can hire 9 fewer people (depending on how the productivity of the position scales)

[jaybrendansmith]

Or better yet, focus on the top line, and enable sales to sell 10 times as much...

[david38]

I haven’t seen this. There are more smaller companies than larger ones. At my company, as a manager, I encourage the use of AI because it appears to make developers about 10% more efficient, helps kickstart new projects, and improves job satisfaction by automating away some of the boring parts of development.

Perhaps at call centers and such you are correct, but your comment is as disingenuous as saying the compiler is about getting a stronger position over labor, or the expansion of included libraries, or faster microprocessors, or modern IDEs before AI. The march towards automation, efficiency, and automation in engineering never stops.

Every so often there is a massive leap which results in significant job losses, but that doesn’t mean it’s about labor. Was the release of AWS about labor? It destroyed many Silicon Valley companies as you could now do with $5k what previously took $200k.

[penguin202]

100% spot on