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People buying into the hype too much? We've been early adopters of AI at my work, but we're still hiring. AI just improved our efficiency a bit. I think if you

People buying into the hype too much? We've been early adopters of AI at my work, but we're still hiring. AI just improved our efficiency a bit. I think if you can replace employees with ChatGPT you probably didn't need them to begin with. They weren't doing valuable work anyway.

fhd2 3y ago
I believe that's an overgeneralization - a lot of jobs when done badly don't immediately reflect in quarterly revenues (the usual definition of "value" in my experience). Companies can make their software unmaintainable, cause a major security issue, ruin their brand or lose customer trust without noticing it - before it's too late. But if management is up for having a job done badly, they usually achieve that regardless of whether an LLM is involved. Edit: I guess I actually agree with you, it's just that companies can have peculiar ideas of what they consider valuable.
MontyCarloHall 3y ago
>I think if you can replace employees with ChatGPT you probably didn't need them to begin with. They weren't doing valuable work anyway. That's a large number of employees. Labor markets are way less rational and efficient than we think. Snark aside, I disagree somewhat. There are plenty of valuable but menial tasks (e.g. cut-and-dry CRUD app development) where >90% of the work can be done with LLMs. The question is, will this cause companies to ... 1. ... keep their current workforce, but produce 10 times the number of CRUD apps? Is there (induced) demand for that? 2. ... keep their current workforce, continue to produce the same number of CRUD apps as today, but with far more features and sophistication than the current product? 3. ... cut 90% of their workforce and continue to deliver the status quo?
- siva7 3y ago
  Doing 3) will result in loosing your competitive edge when everybody else is using AI to improve the product. That's similar to not using enterprise software at all because paper and pen or office 365 will do the trick for now except when it's too late.
- fifilura 3y ago
  I wonder if those jobs would disappear/evolve anyway, AI or not. Frameworks are constantly evolving and setting up a CRUD app is probably easier today than 10 years ago.
  - vkazanov 3y ago
    This might sound old but... did you ever try to set up a modern JS stack? :-)
    - fifilura 3y ago
      I know :) I am just hoping it would be true. It should be true dammit.
    - slashdev 3y ago
      This is too close to home, we just set that at up at work. The developer who spent all week on it looked like he was questioning his career choices.
johnny99k 3y ago
Our marketing department already started replacing content creators with chatGPT. While I don't think it will replace that many jobs right away, it will start replacing more junior roles, which will make it even more difficult to break into many industries.
- leros 3y ago
  I have stopped hiring content writers too. ChatGPT does as good of a job, especially with technical content that some writers often struggle with.

fhd2 3y ago

I believe that's an overgeneralization - a lot of jobs when done badly don't immediately reflect in quarterly revenues (the usual definition of "value" in my experience). Companies can make their software unmaintainable, cause a major security issue, ruin their brand or lose customer trust without noticing it - before it's too late. But if management is up for having a job done badly, they usually achieve that regardless of whether an LLM is involved. Edit: I guess I actually agree with you, it's just that companies can have peculiar ideas of what they consider valuable.

MontyCarloHall 3y ago

>I think if you can replace employees with ChatGPT you probably didn't need them to begin with. They weren't doing valuable work anyway. That's a large number of employees. Labor markets are way less rational and efficient than we think. Snark aside, I disagree somewhat. There are plenty of valuable but menial tasks (e.g. cut-and-dry CRUD app development) where >90% of the work can be done with LLMs. The question is, will this cause companies to ... 1. ... keep their current workforce, but produce 10 times the number of CRUD apps? Is there (induced) demand for that? 2. ... keep their current workforce, continue to produce the same number of CRUD apps as today, but with far more features and sophistication than the current product? 3. ... cut 90% of their workforce and continue to deliver the status quo?

siva7 3y ago
Doing 3) will result in loosing your competitive edge when everybody else is using AI to improve the product. That's similar to not using enterprise software at all because paper and pen or office 365 will do the trick for now except when it's too late.
fifilura 3y ago
I wonder if those jobs would disappear/evolve anyway, AI or not. Frameworks are constantly evolving and setting up a CRUD app is probably easier today than 10 years ago.
- vkazanov 3y ago
  This might sound old but... did you ever try to set up a modern JS stack? :-)
  - fifilura 3y ago
    I know :) I am just hoping it would be true. It should be true dammit.
  - slashdev 3y ago
    This is too close to home, we just set that at up at work. The developer who spent all week on it looked like he was questioning his career choices.

johnny99k 3y ago

Our marketing department already started replacing content creators with chatGPT. While I don't think it will replace that many jobs right away, it will start replacing more junior roles, which will make it even more difficult to break into many industries.

leros 3y ago
I have stopped hiring content writers too. ChatGPT does as good of a job, especially with technical content that some writers often struggle with.