[materielle]

My opinion is that AI isn’t actually the root of the problem here.

It’s that we are heading towards a big recession.

As in all recessions, people come up with all sorts of reasons why everything is fine until it can’t be denied anymore. This time, AI was a useful narrative to have lying around.

[osigurdson]

I think a kind of AI complacency has set in. Companies are just in chill mode right now, laying off people here and there while waiting for AI to get good enough to do actual work.

[baselessness]

Everyone is bracing for a labor supply shock. It will move in the direction opposite what investors expect.

2030 will be 2020 all over again.

[aprilthird2021]

First thing I thought of was Benioff saying he cut thousands of customer support roles because AI can do it better then turning around and giving lackluster earnings report with revised down guidance and the stock tanks

[some-guy]

I have never, ever seen SVPs, CEOs, and PMs completely misunderstand a technology before. And I agree with you, I think it's more of an excuse to trim fat--actual productivity is unlikely to go up (it hasn't at our Fortune 500 company)

[osigurdson]

>> productivity is unlikely to go up

I wonder how that would even be measured? I suppose you could do it for roles that do the same type of work every day. I.e. perhaps there is some statistical relevance to number of calls taken in a call center per day or something like that. One the software development side however, productivity metrics are very hard to quantify. Of course, you can make a dashboard look however you want, but impossible, essentially to tie those metrics to NPV.

[jrochkind1]

> I have never, ever seen SVPs, CEOs, and PMs completely misunderstand a technology before.

I'm legit not sure if that's sarcasm or not

[isodev]

> we are heading towards a big recession

Who is we? One country heading into a recession is hardly enough to nudge the trend of "all things code"

[viridian]

The last US recession that didn't also pull in the rest of the western world was in 1982, over 40 years ago. Western Europe, Aus, NZ, Canada, and the US all largely rise and sink on the same tides, with differences measured in degrees.

[danaris]

Enough of the tech industry is America-based that a US recession is enough to do much more than nudge the trend of "all things code". Much as I would prefer that it were not so.

[colechristensen]

America's recessions are global recessions.

[dragonwriter]

If that “one country” is the US and not, say, Burkina Faso, it is a major impact on financing, and software has an unusually high share of positions dependent on speculative investment for future return rather than directly related to current operations.