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What is with these articles that put layoff statistics next to discussions of AI, not directly making the claim that they are connected (because it is clearly b

What is with these articles that put layoff statistics next to discussions of AI, not directly making the claim that they are connected (because it is clearly baseless), but clearly leaving it for the reader to make the connection. I find this to be incredibly dishonest.

carimura 3y ago
clicks skepticATX, clicks.
newsclues 3y ago
Journalism is in a very bad spot right now, and you would think the fear of AI would inspire better journalism.
nness 3y ago
How is it dishonest to present where major companies are cost-cutting and where they are investing, then highlighting the obvious connection across these companies? Sounds reasonable to me.
- gruez 3y ago
  > How is it dishonest to present where major companies are cost-cutting and where they are investing, then highlighting the obvious connection across these companies? The article doesn't really try to argue "the obvious connection across these companies" aside from a couple of sentences. Most of the article is spent discussing off layoffs and AI investments without attempting to link the two.
jmull 3y ago
> not directly making the claim that they are connected Just to point out, this particular article does make the claim these are connected. E.g., "...tech firms have explicitly cited AI as a reason for rethinking head counts" (There are a few fuzzy details later as well.)
- gruez 3y ago
  >Just to point out, this particular article does make the claim these are connected. yeah, only for one paragraph: > Last year, companies including Chegg, IBM and Dropbox cited the onset of AI as a reason to rethink staffing. More recently, Duolingo and even Google have suggested the same as they seek to mobilize resources to capitalize on the AI boom. And everything before and after that is either fluff or does not make the claim that they're connected. For instance layoffs at Amazon was brought up early in the article, but it's unclear how that has to do with AI. Google is brought up as well, but if you click through the source, the layoffs has less to do with "AI replacing workers" (as the article suggests) and more "google is laying off in the hardware part of the business because they want to focus on the AI part".
  - jmull 3y ago
    > layoffs has less to do with "AI replacing workers" (as the article suggests) The article is pretty clear that it isn't just talking about AI directly replacing workers. From the second sentence of the article: "...not all the recent layoffs in the tech industry are directly linked to AI tools simply replacing workers" and goes on to explain from there that they are talking about companies changing what they are spending money on.
HellDunkel 3y ago
Is it realkly dishonesty? The fearmongering around AI and capitalism is also not irrational so it would require some sort of goal to qualify as lying. What we are seeing is a complete lack of understang the technology and to be honest, it is extremly difficult to dissect and even harder to know whats behind the tech layoffs.
slowhadoken 3y ago
Yeah I can’t imagine LLMs are replacing human labor. Not to mention the obvious legal and ethical issues.
loeg 3y ago
Well, the dollars are related? R&D spending increasing in one area but decreasing in another. Companies have finite dollars to spend on R&D so to some extent this is zero-sum.

carimura 3y ago

clicks skepticATX, clicks.

newsclues 3y ago

Journalism is in a very bad spot right now, and you would think the fear of AI would inspire better journalism.

nness 3y ago

How is it dishonest to present where major companies are cost-cutting and where they are investing, then highlighting the obvious connection across these companies? Sounds reasonable to me.

gruez 3y ago
> How is it dishonest to present where major companies are cost-cutting and where they are investing, then highlighting the obvious connection across these companies? The article doesn't really try to argue "the obvious connection across these companies" aside from a couple of sentences. Most of the article is spent discussing off layoffs and AI investments without attempting to link the two.

jmull 3y ago

> not directly making the claim that they are connected Just to point out, this particular article does make the claim these are connected. E.g., "...tech firms have explicitly cited AI as a reason for rethinking head counts" (There are a few fuzzy details later as well.)

gruez 3y ago
>Just to point out, this particular article does make the claim these are connected. yeah, only for one paragraph: > Last year, companies including Chegg, IBM and Dropbox cited the onset of AI as a reason to rethink staffing. More recently, Duolingo and even Google have suggested the same as they seek to mobilize resources to capitalize on the AI boom. And everything before and after that is either fluff or does not make the claim that they're connected. For instance layoffs at Amazon was brought up early in the article, but it's unclear how that has to do with AI. Google is brought up as well, but if you click through the source, the layoffs has less to do with "AI replacing workers" (as the article suggests) and more "google is laying off in the hardware part of the business because they want to focus on the AI part".
- jmull 3y ago
  > layoffs has less to do with "AI replacing workers" (as the article suggests) The article is pretty clear that it isn't just talking about AI directly replacing workers. From the second sentence of the article: "...not all the recent layoffs in the tech industry are directly linked to AI tools simply replacing workers" and goes on to explain from there that they are talking about companies changing what they are spending money on.

HellDunkel 3y ago

Is it realkly dishonesty? The fearmongering around AI and capitalism is also not irrational so it would require some sort of goal to qualify as lying. What we are seeing is a complete lack of understang the technology and to be honest, it is extremly difficult to dissect and even harder to know whats behind the tech layoffs.

slowhadoken 3y ago

Yeah I can’t imagine LLMs are replacing human labor. Not to mention the obvious legal and ethical issues.

loeg 3y ago

Well, the dollars are related? R&D spending increasing in one area but decreasing in another. Companies have finite dollars to spend on R&D so to some extent this is zero-sum.