I am in the tech space and I have been working with AI. The current state of AI is decent but not reliable. In some of the products I've been working on, it tends to give unintended responses. Some totally wacky. Not at all reliable or fool-proof.

At this point, AI can only be reliably used in areas where the risk is low AND there is some human supervision. AI that is in the public domain is not good enough to be let loose. So how are companies big and small citing AI as the reason for laying off? Most companies don't even use AI for any processes.

It seems like a nice excuse that CEOs stumbled upon so that they can get rid of people, cut costs and get themselves a fat check as bonus.

Maybe because it is replacing the employees who were also "decent but not reliable".

Just what I was thinking.

Automation and outsourcing will be the drivers for plenty of layoffs.

People who didn't understand why outsourcing IT to India and saving salary $$ actually was a bad thing now don't understand that chatgpt has limitations and is not a stable state that can be relied upon to help the business.

Shocker.

Kind of depends on the AI and the employees. This really isn't a new trend, either. Amazon started replacing book critics with recommender systems back when they were still mostly selling books.

Also could be that employees aren't replaced by AI, but their now more productive co-workers who can get more done with it make them superfluous.

AI has plenty of applications that can benefit businesses today. In fact, companies that aren't already using it to some degree are going to get left in the dust very quickly.
Besides, if it can help lower costs, businesses SHOULD be doing it. It sucks for those that are on the chopping block, but it's reality. Adapt or die (metaphorically). That goes for businesses AND workers.

My wife and I are both in separate industries, but we both use AI. It is a tool, it helps us both to be faster and sometimes better. It is reasonable that in some cases, the faster, better work will mean that fewer people are needed to do the same thing. It's the same result of the emergence of any good tool.

You have to be more specific with "AI" as is an umbrella term for an entire field; AI, machine learning, neural networks, deep learning, Natural Linguistic Processing, Large Language Models, Computer Vision.

AI is just making a machine behave like a human. NCAA Football 14 Included some AI.

I wish people would understand this. Are you talking about Generative AI like ChatGPT, bard, etc?

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So how are companies big and small citing AI as the reason for laying off?

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Which CEOs are doing this? I haven't heard of any using it as an excuse.

texagbeliever said:

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People who didn't understand why outsourcing IT to India and saving salary $$ actually was a bad thing now don't understand that chatgpt has limitations and is not a stable state that can be relied upon to help the business.

Shocker.

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Exactly!
During the days when they outsourced everything to India and other countries, I remember the top people getting giddy about the "cost savings". Ohh look, we get 3 engineers for the price of 1! But what they did not care to see is that those 3 engineers were crap and did no work. The US based engineer had to clean up the mess these goofballs created. I've been part of that also.

BadMoonRisin said:

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You have to be more specific with "AI" as is an umbrella term for an entire field; AI, machine learning, neural networks, deep learning, Natural Linguistic Programming, Large Language Models, Computer Vision.

AI is just making a machine behave like a human. NCAA Football 14 Included some AI.

I wish people would understand this. Are you talking about Generative AI like ChatGPT, bard, etc?

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The companies who cite "AI" as the excuse to lay people off don't explain how AI was responsible. They just say "we are looking to use AI more into our processes to optimize...". All a load of crap. They just needed an excuse to get rid of people without inviting hate, and they found it.

infinity ag said:

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texagbeliever said:

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People who didn't understand why outsourcing IT to India and saving salary $$ actually was a bad thing now don't understand that chatgpt has limitations and is not a stable state that can be relied upon to help the business.

Shocker.

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Exactly!
During the days when they outsourced everything to India and other countries, I remember the top people getting giddy about the "cost savings". Ohh look, we get 3 engineers for the price of 1! But what they did not care to see is that those 3 engineers were crap and did no work. The US based engineer had to clean up the mess these goofballs created. I've been part of that also.

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What I think happened is that the few quality engineers that were left were able to keep the system going. The problem was anything new that needed to be created was impossible. Because quality talent creates quality work while quantity talent creates meh work.

As it relates to Chatgpt, as people stop practicing their coding skills, writing skills, etc they will start to lose them. Soon they won't be able to know if this or that will really work. If that sounds good. Then a company has a problem and lacks the in house talent to solve it. Recipe for disaster.

If your job doesn't require interacting with other humans (i.e. all of your work is done on a computer) your job will likely be replaced by AI at some point.

Logos Stick said:

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Which CEOs are doing this? I haven't heard of any using it as an excuse.

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"AI made us do it" is Big Tech's new layoff rationale
https://www.axios.com/2024/01/18/tech-layoffs-ai-2024-google-amazon

Why not replace the CEO and the Board of Directors with AI robots?
Most CEOs are useless and they cost the most.

Logos Stick said:

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Which CEOs are doing this? I haven't heard of any using it as an excuse.

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IBM CEO for one, has stated they will replace 8000 jobs with AI.

texagbeliever said:

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infinity ag said:

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texagbeliever said:

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People who didn't understand why outsourcing IT to India and saving salary $$ actually was a bad thing now don't understand that chatgpt has limitations and is not a stable state that can be relied upon to help the business.

Shocker.

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Exactly!
During the days when they outsourced everything to India and other countries, I remember the top people getting giddy about the "cost savings". Ohh look, we get 3 engineers for the price of 1! But what they did not care to see is that those 3 engineers were crap and did no work. The US based engineer had to clean up the mess these goofballs created. I've been part of that also.

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What I think happened is that the few quality engineers that were left were able to keep the system going. The problem was anything new that needed to be created was impossible. Because quality talent creates quality work while quantity talent creates meh work.

As it relates to Chatgpt, as people stop practicing their coding skills, writing skills, etc they will start to lose them. Soon they won't be able to know if this or that will really work. If that sounds good. Then a company has a problem and lacks the in house talent to solve it. Recipe for disaster.

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The code that programmers from India wrote was not scalable. Hard to debug and generally poor quality. But they did not care, they were "on site" for 6 months and then off to the next location and with a promotion as well. Why would they care about a client?

Learn to code better or your job is on the next block.

infinity ag said:

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Why not replace the CEO and the Board of Directors with AI robots?
Most CEOs are useless and they cost the most.

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Hell, soon they'll be using AI to conduct layoffs. One day, you will get a random cellphone call or Teams meeting request.

Hello, I am the Initech Virtual Human Resources Assistant. Your position has been eliminated. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you. To discuss severance, press 1. To discuss COBRA, press 2. To discuss new job search assistance, press 3.

I'm sorry I didn't get that. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not able to do that as it is anatomically impossible.

Not everyone knows how to ask it the right question to get (or at least close) to the right response.

There's a new burgeoning career/job title called a Prompt Engineer. I'd suggest if you're scared you can learn about it, so you can use it to the best of its abilities.

infinity ag said:

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texagbeliever said:

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infinity ag said:

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texagbeliever said:

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People who didn't understand why outsourcing IT to India and saving salary $$ actually was a bad thing now don't understand that chatgpt has limitations and is not a stable state that can be relied upon to help the business.

Shocker.

---

Exactly!
During the days when they outsourced everything to India and other countries, I remember the top people getting giddy about the "cost savings". Ohh look, we get 3 engineers for the price of 1! But what they did not care to see is that those 3 engineers were crap and did no work. The US based engineer had to clean up the mess these goofballs created. I've been part of that also.

---

What I think happened is that the few quality engineers that were left were able to keep the system going. The problem was anything new that needed to be created was impossible. Because quality talent creates quality work while quantity talent creates meh work.

As it relates to Chatgpt, as people stop practicing their coding skills, writing skills, etc they will start to lose them. Soon they won't be able to know if this or that will really work. If that sounds good. Then a company has a problem and lacks the in house talent to solve it. Recipe for disaster.

---

The code that programmers from India wrote was not scalable. Hard to debug and generally poor quality. But they did not care, they were "on site" for 6 months and then off to the next location and with a promotion as well. Why would they care about a client?

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Most of this is noise for CEOs, CFOs and CIOs.
In most cases, this doesn't matter. Life goes on. That's a fact.

deddog said:

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infinity ag said:

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Why not replace the CEO and the Board of Directors with AI robots?
Most CEOs are useless and they cost the most.

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haha this is true!

I read a joke where "AI" says the CEO and 95% of the VPs are useless, you can get good cost savings.
CEO says "lay off the AI division".

deddog said:

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infinity ag said:

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texagbeliever said:

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infinity ag said:

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texagbeliever said:

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People who didn't understand why outsourcing IT to India and saving salary $$ actually was a bad thing now don't understand that chatgpt has limitations and is not a stable state that can be relied upon to help the business.

Shocker.

---

Exactly!
During the days when they outsourced everything to India and other countries, I remember the top people getting giddy about the "cost savings". Ohh look, we get 3 engineers for the price of 1! But what they did not care to see is that those 3 engineers were crap and did no work. The US based engineer had to clean up the mess these goofballs created. I've been part of that also.

---

What I think happened is that the few quality engineers that were left were able to keep the system going. The problem was anything new that needed to be created was impossible. Because quality talent creates quality work while quantity talent creates meh work.

As it relates to Chatgpt, as people stop practicing their coding skills, writing skills, etc they will start to lose them. Soon they won't be able to know if this or that will really work. If that sounds good. Then a company has a problem and lacks the in house talent to solve it. Recipe for disaster.

---

The code that programmers from India wrote was not scalable. Hard to debug and generally poor quality. But they did not care, they were "on site" for 6 months and then off to the next location and with a promotion as well. Why would they care about a client?

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Most of this is noise for CEOs, CFOs and CIOs.
In most cases, this doesn't matter. Life goes on. That's a fact.

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You are right. Their response is just "deal with it". These companies probably bribed the CIO and got them to push in their people.

BadMoonRisin said:

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Not everyone knows how to ask it the right question to get (or at least close) to the right response.

There's a new burgeoning career/job title called a Prompt Engineer. I'd suggest if you're scared you can learn about it.

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Until AI starts generating prompts

BadMoonRisin said:

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Not everyone knows how to ask it the right question to get (or at least close) to the right response.

There's a new burgeoning career/job title called a Prompt Engineer. I'd suggest if you're scared you can learn about it.

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They make a big deal about Prompt Engineering. There are even courses about it. It's basically just spoken English which is concise and unambiguous.

Hagen95 said:

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Learn to code better or your job is on the next block.

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This is entirely not true.

As evidenced by a large number of companies offshoring software jobs. They don't do it because overseas folks are better. They do it because they are a LOT cheaper.
For many companies, it's less expensive to deal with bad offshore code and bad offshore programmers, than to pay $$$$ to good S/W engineers.

And yes, you can certainly find really good programmers offshore as well. Then things are a no-brainer. For now, those are hard to find.

deddog said:

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Hagen95 said:

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Learn to code better or your job is on the next block.

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This is entirely not true.

As evidenced by a large number of companies offshoring software jobs. They don't do it because overseas folks are better. They do it because they are a LOT cheaper.
For many companies, it's less expensive to deal with bad offshore code and bad offshore programmers, than to pay $$$$ to good S/W engineers.

And yes, you can certainly find really good programmers offshore as well. Then things are a no-brainer. For now, those are hard to find.

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But AI will make finding those good programmers easy. Just wait until the machines can code themselves.

BadMoonRisin said:

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Not everyone knows how to ask it the right question to get (or at least close) to the right response.

There's a new burgeoning career/job title called a Prompt Engineer. I'd suggest if you're scared you can learn about it, so you can use it to the best of its abilities.

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My wife tries to use ChatGPT like a search engine then rants endlessly about how stupid it is and dangerous that it hallucinates frequently. When she should be using it up produce presentation outlines, project deadlines, writing macros, and providing MS Office and Windows tech support.

Hagen95 said:

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deddog said:

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Hagen95 said:

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Learn to code better or your job is on the next block.

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This is entirely not true.

As evidenced by a large number of companies offshoring software jobs. They don't do it because overseas folks are better. They do it because they are a LOT cheaper.
For many companies, it's less expensive to deal with bad offshore code and bad offshore programmers, than to pay $$$$ to good S/W engineers.

And yes, you can certainly find really good programmers offshore as well. Then things are a no-brainer. For now, those are hard to find.

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But AI will make finding those good programmers easy. Just wait until the machines can code themselves.

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Info security is going to be interesting. Honestly it can't help me a ton because of proprietary info, not that it isn't capable of the code. By the time I edit the code I'd need, it's just easier to write myself.

Did anyone see some of the idiots that Twitter kicked to the curb when Musk took over? A lot of those former employees were certainly engaged in "low risk" activities. I am sure corporate America is filled with large numbers of those leg-humpers.

I am laughing because I quit my job where I was overworked, and just heard they are hiring my replacement an assistant AND passing off other work I did to another person. So I was doing the work of three. I should tell them to use AI.