Could be a FUD article for clicks. But in my limited circle I've noticed lots of people simply... drop out. Like they get fired or quit then basically retire in their mid 30's. I don't know where these people are getting money from. Some people have kind of half-assed business ideas, like one of my buddies is designing his dream board game, another buddy is building an online wine merchant portal or something. In general I notice that the smartest people in my life have bifurcated into two camps. Half of them have retired, more or less. The other half have been afflicted with frenetic energy, trying to grasp all they can before the window closes. I dunno.
"In interviews, CEOs often hedge when asked about job losses..."
True, but other CEOs often like to be dramatic and the center of attention, wanting to be seen as bold, cost cutting, and at the forefront of trends, whether or not they are accurate in anything they say.
I've been around long enough to see that boldness become a source of regret at times. If someone refers to AI slop, it's widely understood what's meant. Putting slop at the center of your company personnel strategy doesn't sound quite as appealing.
The quotes at the end of the article seem more thoughtful to me, more realistic and measured.
It's an easy thing to say without giving specific time frames. At least when Elon makes grand pronouncements he risks getting it horribly wrong.
"told investors in May that she could see its operations head count falling by 10% in the coming years as the company uses new AI tools."
Here's a time-frame a bit more specific then "in the coming years", but still vague:
"Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in May that half of all entry-level jobs could disappear in one to five years"
Repeating a comment I've read on HN before: Following on from cutting down entry-level jobs must imply cutting down on all those next levels up as well. Minimising the number of people coming through Gate 1 will necessarily reduce the number of people going through Gate 2 (yes, you can hire in people to go straight through Gate 2, but they'll have had to go through Gate 1 somewhere).
I don't trust most CEOs perspectives on AI at all, they are far too removed from the actual work to know what AI can and can't do.
When I hear a CEO say this, what I hear is that they are going to use AI as an excuse to do massive layoffs to juice stock price and then cash out before the house of cards comes tumbling down. Every public company CEOs dream. The GE model in the age of AI.
Will AI drastically reshape industries and careers? Absolutely. Do currently CEOs understand or even care how (outside of making them richer in the next few quarters)? No.
CEOs are just marketing to investors with ridiculous claims because their products have stagnated. (See Benioffs recent claim that 50% of work at Salesforce is AI. Maybe that is why it sucks so much)
It's the opposite.Every use case needs its own distinct workflow ("context engineering"). We need a massive amount of engineers in order to implement LLMs in real-world business environments.
But in most cases, LLMs will be prompted by practitioners, i.e. designers who mockup designs in Figma, engineers who generate code in their IDE - and then invariably need to correct it.
All in all, LLMs will cause an employment boom if widely adopted.
'AI' doesn't make hiring, layoff, or corporate strategic decisions. Public pronouncements speak of AI as some disembodied, inevitable agent out there directing the world, when really it's just humans engaging in competitive capitalism.
TL;DR: We always have a choice. And as we often do, we're choosing capitalism.
Not what I am seeing with the current state of AI. Yes using AI makes me more productive. But it needs a lot of hand holding and prompting to do the right thing, requiring somebody who knows what they are doing to use it effectively.
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[ 43.0 ms ] story [ 338 ms ] threadArticle via Mint.
True, but other CEOs often like to be dramatic and the center of attention, wanting to be seen as bold, cost cutting, and at the forefront of trends, whether or not they are accurate in anything they say.
I've been around long enough to see that boldness become a source of regret at times. If someone refers to AI slop, it's widely understood what's meant. Putting slop at the center of your company personnel strategy doesn't sound quite as appealing.
The quotes at the end of the article seem more thoughtful to me, more realistic and measured.
"told investors in May that she could see its operations head count falling by 10% in the coming years as the company uses new AI tools."
Here's a time-frame a bit more specific then "in the coming years", but still vague:
"Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in May that half of all entry-level jobs could disappear in one to five years"
Repeating a comment I've read on HN before: Following on from cutting down entry-level jobs must imply cutting down on all those next levels up as well. Minimising the number of people coming through Gate 1 will necessarily reduce the number of people going through Gate 2 (yes, you can hire in people to go straight through Gate 2, but they'll have had to go through Gate 1 somewhere).
That someone is your co-worker and will soon be your co-worker's co-worker.
I don't see how the rate of job creation can come close to the rate job loss we'll see for a few years.
What do you think technological advancement does?!?
It removes work.
Now, if you say that unlike for every other time there isn’t more opportunity created…I guess you have an interesting point.
But yeah — duh.
I don’t know many assembly programmers. They’ve been “wiped out.”
When I hear a CEO say this, what I hear is that they are going to use AI as an excuse to do massive layoffs to juice stock price and then cash out before the house of cards comes tumbling down. Every public company CEOs dream. The GE model in the age of AI.
Will AI drastically reshape industries and careers? Absolutely. Do currently CEOs understand or even care how (outside of making them richer in the next few quarters)? No.
CEOs are just marketing to investors with ridiculous claims because their products have stagnated. (See Benioffs recent claim that 50% of work at Salesforce is AI. Maybe that is why it sucks so much)
Then we can hire more on-shore faces and use them to actually deliver what we have them sell. Think of the profits. Execute.
But in most cases, LLMs will be prompted by practitioners, i.e. designers who mockup designs in Figma, engineers who generate code in their IDE - and then invariably need to correct it.
All in all, LLMs will cause an employment boom if widely adopted.
All I see is bullet points being poorly communicated through LLMs these days.
TL;DR: We always have a choice. And as we often do, we're choosing capitalism.
The other part of that half that doesn't get wiped out will have more work while, at best, being paid the same.
Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, all right.