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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True, and that'll happen as soon as congress gives themselves term limits and pay cuts.

98% of these jobs are just adult day care anyway, but maybe OP should start a company and hire them if she can do better.

infinity ag said:

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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.

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I think you are misunderstanding their reasoning. "We need to invest more money and people in AI because it is not super reliable, which means we are going to lay off these other groups or downsize/devest."

Who knows how this shakes out, but I think the overreaction to this is similar to Y2K frenzy that never materialized.

I think lib donor CEOs just prefer to use the AI acronym instead of the R word during an election year.

lb3 said:

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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.

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I used ChatGPT to write me talk tracks for presentation slides. I pasted the slides in, with the right prompts, it would tell me what to say.

infinity ag said:

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lb3 said:

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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.

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I used ChatGPT to write me talk tracks for presentation slides. I pasted the slides in, with the right prompts, it would tell me what to say.

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Yes, most jobs at corporations are just not needed, any excuse to cut the fat.

infinity ag said:

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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.

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Good. Innovative leaders deserve to get paid and people that are replaceable are replaced.

As the guy you undoubtedly voted for once said "learn to code."

Upper management is doing what they always do: find some new initiative or emerging product or technology or process and over project the cost savings or profit generation and then operate in the short term to make numbers they are responsible for initially better. They get their big performance bonuses and then change roles or assignments or reorganize or skip off to the next job before the unintended consequences hit. Smash and grab at a massive scale. The scattering of truly competent and conscientious management within often manage to hold things together despite this behavior. Innovation is important but the reward structure we have settled into front loads the rewards and encourages short term thinking that increases long term risk.

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 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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It doesn't matter in this context. This is a discussion about CEOs using the transition as an "excuse" to nuke jobs, regardless of the type or category. I use excuse in quotes because that doesn't make any sense. It's not an excuse, it's a cause. Doesn't matter if it's occurring now or will occur in the future.

I had AI write something for me the other day, good base then I dressed it up…

ABATTBQ11 said:

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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.

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a lot fewer incompetent attorneys will be employed in the future as AI become ubiquitous.

if Alina Habba didn't look like this- she is a perfect candidate for AI replacement

OldArmyAggie94 said:

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I had AI write something for me the other day, good base then I dressed it up…

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i have only used ChatGPT to test a few things- for the book I am writing it came up with a lot of incorrect information

LMCane said:

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OldArmyAggie94 said:

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I had AI write something for me the other day, good base then I dressed it up…

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i have only used ChatGPT to test a few things- for the book I am writing it came up with a lot of incorrect information

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That is the point. Today's AI cannot replace a human unless it is for mundane tasks. If you are replacing entire divisions like Google is and claiming "AI", then the real reason is your business sucks and the CEO failed, and needs to cut costs so blaming AI, rather than herself.

Or he is wanting to put and hire more people on AI/ML and the budget has to come from somewhere.

Fair enough. Like I said earlier, I think these Uber rich Dem donor CEOs suggest it's because AI is making companies more efficient because they don't want to say it's business conditions and they are highly confident that a recession is coming.

LMCane said:

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ABATTBQ11 said:

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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.

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a lot fewer incompetent attorneys will be employed in the future as AI become ubiquitous.

if Alina Habba didn't look like this- she is a perfect candidate for AI replacement

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If she didn't look like that she wouldn't be Trump's lawyer. Thankfully she's become quite a piece to look at by all risks to Trump wanting her close to him... as her lawyer of course.

BadMoonRisin said:

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Fair enough. Like I said earlier, I think these Uber rich Dem donor CEOs suggest it's because AI is making companies more efficient because they don't want to say it's business conditions and they are highly confident that a recession is coming.

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Yeah, that could be the case. To me, to lay it at the feet of AI right now seems dubious because I don't think AI has progressed enough to replace labor at those numbers. It could eventually. I was thinking more along the lines of reduction now in anticipation of AI projects that will reduce labor.

True story - legal AI exists and works very well. The people who are going to struggle to find work because of it are more junior attorneys (why explain an issue to an associate and then have them burn hours researching when I can type the issue into Casetext and have the answer in 5 minutes) and legal academia. Any part of academia whose job is anything besides teaching is functionally obsolete.

torrid said:

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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.

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ThunderCougarFalconBird said:

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True story - legal AI exists and works very well. The people who are going to struggle to find work because of it are more junior attorneys (why explain an issue to an associate and then have them burn hours researching when I can type the issue into Casetext and have the answer in 5 minutes) and legal academia. Any part of academia whose job is anything besides teaching is functionally obsolete.

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That is the issue on day 0.

In 10-20 years when no Junior attorney's actually struggled for the knowledge and learned things they will never be as sharp or intelligent as the partners are. So the whole field will become dumber because of AI. Because AI will remove the aspects of learning and grinding necessary for personal development.

Who has a better mastery of math.
Kid 1 who couldn't use a graphing calculator at all throughout school and had to do math by hand
or Kid 2 who used a graphing calculator all throughout school and rarely did math by hand.

Answer is obviously Kid 1.

If it's true that AI is better at a task than a human and at a lower price, then AI SHOULD do it. It will momentarily suck for that human, but in the long run it is better for society as a whole (and that human).

This is the same 150 year argument against automation which has been proven wrong time and time again by reality.

aTmAg said:

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If it's true that AI is better at a task than a human and at a lower price, then AI SHOULD do it. It will momentarily suck for that human, but in the long run it is better for society as a whole (and that human).

This is the same 150 year argument against automation which has been proven wrong time and time again by reality.

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I think this is patently untrue.

A person doesn't go from a junior worker to a senior worker without the time in the trenches grinding and learning fundamentals. There isn't some magical jump in production. So if you say AI will only replace lower level employees eventually there won't be any higher level employees. That is not a good thing.

LMCane said:

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ABATTBQ11 said:

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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.

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a lot fewer incompetent attorneys will be employed in the future as AI become ubiquitous.

if Alina Habba didn't look like this- she is a perfect candidate for AI replacement

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Trump owns you.

texagbeliever said:

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aTmAg said:

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If it's true that AI is better at a task than a human and at a lower price, then AI SHOULD do it. It will momentarily suck for that human, but in the long run it is better for society as a whole (and that human).

This is the same 150 year argument against automation which has been proven wrong time and time again by reality.

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I think this is patently untrue.

A person doesn't go from a junior worker to a senior worker without the time in the trenches grinding and learning fundamentals. There isn't some magical jump in production. So if you say AI will only replace lower level employees eventually there won't be any higher level employees. That is not a good thing.

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Then you are patently incorrect.

This claim has been around since before the industrial revolution. People claiming machine X will take our jobs! Yet because of these machines, we have experienced exponential growth rather than no growth. Before these machines, generations of people have lived the same miserable lives as the 10 generations prior. It is on workers to gain skills necessary to make a living. It's not on everybody else to provide it for them.

The fact that low level employees find themselves without any work is not due to automation, but due to stupid government policies such as the minimum wage, payroll taxes, regulations, etc. that push the cost of employment far too high. Low level workers cannot provide their employers enough value to make it worth it worth hiring them. In the old days, a high school graduate alone could make enough by himself to provide a comfortable life for his entire family. Government has made that impossible. Not automation.

The more I read the tea leaves about all of these layoffs, I do not think that currently implemented AI is the reason for all of the layoffs.

I think there is already a battle that will most definitely intensify to see which companies can successfully "win" the AI gold rush. Since money is no longer as cheap as it used to be, reductions in force will be in preparation for investment in AI.

The leadership of these companies know they can gain a significant competitive advantage against the market, but in order to do so they have to be the first ones there with the right people to leverage it.

So it's not in response to AI actually doing anything now, and cutting costs so that capital can be freed up to invest in and scale AI as quickly and economically as possible.

It's a gold rush, and throwing grandpa and grandma and your 3 elderly great aunts off the wagon to get you there quicker is simply the price of competing. It's the FOMO -- fear of missing out -- even for a few months -- and what that might do to your business or your market share or position.

The phrase I heard very commonly before I was laid off from a F30 Tech company was "We arent trying to do more with less, we are trying to do less with less".

They just want to keep in lean fighting shape until their AI investments whatever they might be, a multi-year roadmap most likely, can start producing results. They are shoring up the stock prices so they can float for a year or two before "the hockey stick" that they are all predicting actually comes to fruition.

Google's Sundar Pichai recently alluded to this in an internal memo where he said the company has "ambitious goals" and "big priorities" that will require a massive investment, leading to cost-cutting and layoffs in certain areas.

Goldman predicts that total AI investment forecast to become $200B by 2025.

https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/ai-investment-forecast-to-approach-200-billion-globally-by-2025.html

Essentially, they're removing the rank-and-file infantry to be the first one's to unlock the nuke.

To the victor, go the spoils.

I already know my company will have one possibly two rounds of reductions in 2024 from the AI package we just bought.

Including most of our engineers with less than 5-7 years of experience.

The system looks really robust but my question to our president would be something like, "if we get rid of all the new engineers, what will we do when the old engineers leave or retire?"Because I know we don't have a plan for that.

We also won't be ready when the experienced customer service people leave that department since the main point of the AI package is to get rid of them and similar. Good luck ever talking to a human when you call us.

infinity ag said:

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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.

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So:

How to make a wish 101?

Why do they need an excuse ? They are charged with doing what they think is best for their business.

TexasRebel said:

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infinity ag said:

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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.

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So:

How to make a wish 101?

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That role isn't even really new. In software dev we call them "Business Analysts". They break up large software goals into tasks for the developers to do in exact language that can be accomplished in an exact and measurable way.

Except now there is immediate feedback on how successful that task language was stated.

The fact that anyone "needs" an excuse to lay off ANYONE is ****ed.

1. They are in charge
2. Those in charge set who and how many they employ

Any questions, see 1.

infinity ag said:

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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.

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Look into AutoGen. You can create teams of AI agents with multiple agents working on something and other managerial agents checking their work. It creates much more reliable output.

deddog said:

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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

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This is already happening.

texagbeliever said:

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ThunderCougarFalconBird said:

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True story - legal AI exists and works very well. The people who are going to struggle to find work because of it are more junior attorneys (why explain an issue to an associate and then have them burn hours researching when I can type the issue into Casetext and have the answer in 5 minutes) and legal academia. Any part of academia whose job is anything besides teaching is functionally obsolete.

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That is the issue on day 0.

In 10-20 years when no Junior attorney's actually struggled for the knowledge and learned things they will never be as sharp or intelligent as the partners are. So the whole field will become dumber because of AI. Because AI will remove the aspects of learning and grinding necessary for personal development.

Who has a better mastery of math.
Kid 1 who couldn't use a graphing calculator at all throughout school and had to do math by hand
or Kid 2 who used a graphing calculator all throughout school and rarely did math by hand.

Answer is obviously Kid 1.

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It's the same issue in many professions.

AI will replace humans on the ground level of business first.

But without that entry level, you'll have a bubble where workers haven't been trained on the ground level, or really proven and developed into handling responsibility period, and aren't ready for the next level where humans are required.

Madman said:

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I already know my company will have one possibly two rounds of reductions in 2024 from the AI package we just bought.

Including most of our engineers with less than 5-7 years of experience.

The system looks really robust but my question to our president would be something like, "if we get rid of all the new engineers, what will we do when the old engineers leave or retire?"Because I know we don't have a plan for that.

We also won't be ready when the experienced customer service people leave that department since the main point of the AI package is to get rid of them and similar. Good luck ever talking to a human when you call us.

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This is a major issue that will plague every single company soon. There is no long term planning at all for upward mobility. The people most affected by AI are all junior level staff. You don't just magically become a senior level engineer. It requires years of effort and work because what makes a senior engineer is not time, it's competence and knowledge of what works and what doesn't.

It's hard enough to find people as it is now. Where do the kids go if junior level engineers can't find work anywhere? How do you even begin to find work if you need 10 years of experience before you are even considered? This is not the current catch22 where "I need a job to get experience but I need experience to get a job," it's basically eliminating entry level positions.

If you effectively remove an entire generations' ability to work, don't be surprised when the country craters and riots begin to happen.

torrid said:

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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.

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I learned how to conduct difficult conversations from Moneyball. "Carlos, you've been traded to the Tigers. Here is your plane ticket and the phone number of xxxx who is expecting your call. Good luck with everything."

We could all learn a thing or two from your AI model.