AI

[mister_coffee]

Good points but there is zero evidence that the current track AI is on is going to lead to massive job losses.

If you are optimistic and generous the current generation of AI tools can increase productivity by about twenty percent. In practice in the real world it is more like ten percent. That isn't the order-of-magnitude increases you'd need to see to produce large-scale displacement of the workforce.

Yes, many companies are reducing staff "because of AI". What's really going on is a bit different:

1. A lot of companies overhired after COVID dissipated and they are covering up that mistake by saying they are using AI to reduce staff.
2. Some companies are reducing staff and using the savings to increase investment in AI.
3. Some companies are counting their chickens before they are hatched and assume their AI initiatives will all succeed so they can start layoffs now.

The current generation of AI tools seems to have inherent limitations where they require human intervention often enough that we still need humans in the loop but work often enough that they work poorly with how human attention work. And they fail catastrophically and dangerously often enough that we will have a Chernobyl moment around AI in our near future.

[PAL]

https://carlynbeccia.substack.com/p/whe ... -that-took