Cynically, it doesn't matter if AI actually replaces jobs, but as long as the stock market BELIEVES that it does, then it gives companies permission to do layoffs without taking a hit to the stock price.
qudat · 22m ago
That was a random show thought I had a couple days ago:
> We’ve managed to convince the biggest tech companies to invest trillions into tech that doesn’t replace SWEs, rather, a new dev tool at our disposal to make some aspects of our job easier: search and tedious coding tasks, saving us time.
Another blog post about the study that found 90% of employees were using AI regularly in their work....that totally omits the part about 90% of employees using AI regularly.
The study found that company implementations were failing while people heavily used their own choice LLMs.
selcuka · 24m ago
I agree. The original report is vague about that as well:
> Over 80 percent of organizations have explored or piloted them, and nearly 40 percent report deployment. But these tools primarily enhance individual productivity, not P&L performance.
How on earth does "enhancing individual productivity" not improve P&L performance?
reval · 14m ago
Snark aside, this is the main topic of Eli Goldratt's "The Goal" - one of my favourite books. Output of the business is constrained by some bottleneck. Improving efficiency away from the bottleneck is just waste. Said differently, enhancing individual productivity has no effect on the business output unless doing so elevates the bottleneck. Sadly, most business don't know what their constraints are or are otherwise blocked from elevating them due to politics and other factors.
qudat · 21m ago
> How on earth does "enhancing individual productivity" not improve P&L performance?
If the individual is more productive, they can work fewer hours. This is especially true in a remote-work environment where you are not in an office setting.
arcane23 · 3m ago
>If the individual is more productive, they can work fewer hours.
I have never seen people working fewer hours due to technological improvement, productivity just goes up from them working more efficiently for 8 hours.
Aeolun · 21m ago
If your boss doesn’t get credited for it it doesn’t count?
spacecadet · 26m ago
If you are not already viewing work as a transfer of wealth and nothing more, nows your time.
https://mlq.ai/media/quarterly_decks/v0.1_State_of_AI_in_Bus...
> We’ve managed to convince the biggest tech companies to invest trillions into tech that doesn’t replace SWEs, rather, a new dev tool at our disposal to make some aspects of our job easier: search and tedious coding tasks, saving us time.
https://fosstodon.org/@erock/115112206590198248
The study found that company implementations were failing while people heavily used their own choice LLMs.
> Over 80 percent of organizations have explored or piloted them, and nearly 40 percent report deployment. But these tools primarily enhance individual productivity, not P&L performance.
How on earth does "enhancing individual productivity" not improve P&L performance?
If the individual is more productive, they can work fewer hours. This is especially true in a remote-work environment where you are not in an office setting.
I have never seen people working fewer hours due to technological improvement, productivity just goes up from them working more efficiently for 8 hours.