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I raise an eyebrow at the idea that any of the job losses this year are due to a pivot to AI. It will happen, but the workflow integrations and context limitati

I raise an eyebrow at the idea that any of the job losses this year are due to a pivot to AI. It will happen, but the workflow integrations and context limitations for AI are not there yet to make it a viable replacement for anyone, and certainly not at the scale of the job losses seen this year. The job losses this year are due to 1. the harsher funding environment, 2. perceived overhiring that went on during the pandemic boom in online services, 3. caution over the state of the global economy.

higherhalf 3y ago
It's not due to a move to AI-enhanced workflows. The article speculates that it's caused by companies wanting to develop AI-related products, moving some workforce and culling the unwilling, just like my employer.
astrange 3y ago
There's also a recent US tax quirk that made employing any software engineer much more expensive. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/congress-is-running-out-of-time-to-fix-a-critical-rd-tax-issue-in-2023/ https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/congress-is-running-out-of...
hyperhopper 3y ago
The real reason is 4: sending the signal to investors that they are a serious big boy company that can make the hard choices and cut budgets when they need to in order to continue to have YoY record profits in fiscally challenging climates.
- rrr_oh_man 3y ago
  This.
  - rcarmo 3y ago
    Yep. AI is not going to remove jobs. It might displace a few, but the current state of the art feels a lot like Disney’s Sorceror’s Apprentice.
    - nicbou 3y ago
      After playing with AI for a bit and letting my own hype die down, I see something that will undeniably be useful and improve productivity, but still require skillful application and only help at a relatively low level. It doesn't reason or create new things, but it does useful low-level work and eliminates drudgery. In that sense it reminds me of spreadsheets and short python scripts. We've had those for a while and they have not displaced so the entire workforce.
- oldpersonintx 3y ago
  [dead]
- aurareturn 3y ago
  I think the real reason is that interest rates are high so growth will be slow for a while so they need to cut headcount in response.
  - whatyesaid 3y ago
    People who cite interest rates and economy are coping hard. It's all of a sudden a factor now but never was before. Apart from dotcom specific crash, tech has seen relentless growth, until recent years where it was shown firing people had no negative effect.
    - candiodari 3y ago
      The only way I'd agree to "no negative effect" is to say that: 1) all FANGs are effectively dropping in profits, and it's because of "net-revenue": if revenue is up, it's because of new loans, new future financial obligations. 2) One exception is Facebook BUT profit growth certainly isn't what it used to be. And they certainly weren't shy about new loans either. 3) Another different exception is Apple BUT it's "very Apple" financial results: all Apple revenue sources are dropping, some fast, except for one: "services". And, yes, that one new revenue source is making up, for now, for the losses everywhere else. Does anybody seriously believe this can last more than a few quarters though? I get that apple wants the "big new thing" every decade or so. But I find it very hard to believe that service revenue increase can be the big new thing for even 2-3 years without angering every last customer Apple has. The iPhone was a total homerun, and I just refuse to believe that "service" can be even the palest of shadows compared to that. (just so we're clear: I applaud Apple for continuing to innovate, even on product lines dropping in revenue for years, that every MBA on the planet would mass-layoff the shit out of and suck the customers dry in an attempt to extract every last dollar they can) (P.S. Apple is an exception because they haven't done layoffs, which is what's supposed to make the difference. It certainly made SOME difference, but is it big enough? Time will tell)
  - TomSwirly 3y ago
    > interest rates are high Interest rates are lower than they have been for most of my life, and close to the average interest rate over the last 700 years. https://bankunderground.co.uk/2017/11/06/guest-post-global-real-interest-rates-since-1311-renaissance-roots-and-rapid-reversals/ https://bankunderground.co.uk/2017/11/06/guest-post-global-r... People have simply gotten used to governments in the last twenty years trying to juice their economies by dropping interest rates more and more.
danpalmer 3y ago
I misinterpreted the article headline in the same way as I think you may have. This is not suggesting that companies are pivoting from employees to AI, it is suggesting that companies are pivoting to development of AI products, and in that process, "re-skilling" and laying off teams that will be unnecessary for that trend.
tibbar 3y ago
When major corporations say they are cutting jobs due to AI, it’s not because of internal productivity gains (and this is not what they are claiming), outside of niche cases like content moderation, etc. Rather, the layoffs occur because these companies are making large capital investments, billions of dollars, into additional compute, training data, etc. Vast sums of money will continue to be spent in hopes of… something or other. Ex. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/google-layoffs-2024-sundar-pichai/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/google-layoffs-2024-sundar-...
red_admiral 3y ago
I can understand job losses due to AI at Stack Overflow, Chegg, and possibly Quora. Everywhere else, as you say it's a fig leaf for other concerns.
mewpmewp2 3y ago
You don't have to think of this as replacement, but as a multiplier. If AI can make 1000 engineers 1.25x more productive - with good auto-complete, boilerplate gen, auto-generated docs, faq bots, then you can do what you already did with 800 engineers. Although looked at another way, it will give you more for the same money, so maybe it will make some projects more worth to work on than they were previously so you'd rather hire even more people, because more projects would cross the threshold of "being worth for the investment". So there's multiple forces acting on this, it's unclear how exactly it would play out. In addition just standards and competition for existing things may rise, and the productivity gains will just go there, because you have to build 1.25x better products to compete.
- guenthert 3y ago
  If 25% of your code is boilerplate, then I'd think it's time to invest in better tools, libraries and abstraction. What happened to "don't repeat yourself?" However writing the code is just such a minor component of developers' time, if an 25% improvement in efficiency is desired, I'd think no time at all can be spent anymore on writing the code.
locopati 3y ago
4. Moving money to the pockets of investors and C-levels (aka greed)
foinker 3y ago
It's true that many many places overextended themselves while under the influence of ZIRP. However, I think it's giving the execs/boards too much credit to say they're reluctant to do layoffs because the tech isn't there yet. Everyone is eager to get on the AI train because they want to pay fewer employees.

higherhalf 3y ago

It's not due to a move to AI-enhanced workflows. The article speculates that it's caused by companies wanting to develop AI-related products, moving some workforce and culling the unwilling, just like my employer.

astrange 3y ago

There's also a recent US tax quirk that made employing any software engineer much more expensive. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/congress-is-running-out-of-time-to-fix-a-critical-rd-tax-issue-in-2023/ https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/congress-is-running-out-of...

hyperhopper 3y ago

The real reason is 4: sending the signal to investors that they are a serious big boy company that can make the hard choices and cut budgets when they need to in order to continue to have YoY record profits in fiscally challenging climates.

rrr_oh_man 3y ago
This.
- rcarmo 3y ago
  Yep. AI is not going to remove jobs. It might displace a few, but the current state of the art feels a lot like Disney’s Sorceror’s Apprentice.
  - nicbou 3y ago
    After playing with AI for a bit and letting my own hype die down, I see something that will undeniably be useful and improve productivity, but still require skillful application and only help at a relatively low level. It doesn't reason or create new things, but it does useful low-level work and eliminates drudgery. In that sense it reminds me of spreadsheets and short python scripts. We've had those for a while and they have not displaced so the entire workforce.
oldpersonintx 3y ago
[dead]
aurareturn 3y ago
I think the real reason is that interest rates are high so growth will be slow for a while so they need to cut headcount in response.
- whatyesaid 3y ago
  People who cite interest rates and economy are coping hard. It's all of a sudden a factor now but never was before. Apart from dotcom specific crash, tech has seen relentless growth, until recent years where it was shown firing people had no negative effect.
  - candiodari 3y ago
    The only way I'd agree to "no negative effect" is to say that: 1) all FANGs are effectively dropping in profits, and it's because of "net-revenue": if revenue is up, it's because of new loans, new future financial obligations. 2) One exception is Facebook BUT profit growth certainly isn't what it used to be. And they certainly weren't shy about new loans either. 3) Another different exception is Apple BUT it's "very Apple" financial results: all Apple revenue sources are dropping, some fast, except for one: "services". And, yes, that one new revenue source is making up, for now, for the losses everywhere else. Does anybody seriously believe this can last more than a few quarters though? I get that apple wants the "big new thing" every decade or so. But I find it very hard to believe that service revenue increase can be the big new thing for even 2-3 years without angering every last customer Apple has. The iPhone was a total homerun, and I just refuse to believe that "service" can be even the palest of shadows compared to that. (just so we're clear: I applaud Apple for continuing to innovate, even on product lines dropping in revenue for years, that every MBA on the planet would mass-layoff the shit out of and suck the customers dry in an attempt to extract every last dollar they can) (P.S. Apple is an exception because they haven't done layoffs, which is what's supposed to make the difference. It certainly made SOME difference, but is it big enough? Time will tell)
- TomSwirly 3y ago
  > interest rates are high Interest rates are lower than they have been for most of my life, and close to the average interest rate over the last 700 years. https://bankunderground.co.uk/2017/11/06/guest-post-global-real-interest-rates-since-1311-renaissance-roots-and-rapid-reversals/ https://bankunderground.co.uk/2017/11/06/guest-post-global-r... People have simply gotten used to governments in the last twenty years trying to juice their economies by dropping interest rates more and more.

danpalmer 3y ago

I misinterpreted the article headline in the same way as I think you may have. This is not suggesting that companies are pivoting from employees to AI, it is suggesting that companies are pivoting to development of AI products, and in that process, "re-skilling" and laying off teams that will be unnecessary for that trend.

tibbar 3y ago

When major corporations say they are cutting jobs due to AI, it’s not because of internal productivity gains (and this is not what they are claiming), outside of niche cases like content moderation, etc. Rather, the layoffs occur because these companies are making large capital investments, billions of dollars, into additional compute, training data, etc. Vast sums of money will continue to be spent in hopes of… something or other. Ex. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/google-layoffs-2024-sundar-pichai/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/google-layoffs-2024-sundar-...

red_admiral 3y ago

I can understand job losses due to AI at Stack Overflow, Chegg, and possibly Quora. Everywhere else, as you say it's a fig leaf for other concerns.

mewpmewp2 3y ago

You don't have to think of this as replacement, but as a multiplier. If AI can make 1000 engineers 1.25x more productive - with good auto-complete, boilerplate gen, auto-generated docs, faq bots, then you can do what you already did with 800 engineers. Although looked at another way, it will give you more for the same money, so maybe it will make some projects more worth to work on than they were previously so you'd rather hire even more people, because more projects would cross the threshold of "being worth for the investment". So there's multiple forces acting on this, it's unclear how exactly it would play out. In addition just standards and competition for existing things may rise, and the productivity gains will just go there, because you have to build 1.25x better products to compete.

guenthert 3y ago
If 25% of your code is boilerplate, then I'd think it's time to invest in better tools, libraries and abstraction. What happened to "don't repeat yourself?" However writing the code is just such a minor component of developers' time, if an 25% improvement in efficiency is desired, I'd think no time at all can be spent anymore on writing the code.

locopati 3y ago

4. Moving money to the pockets of investors and C-levels (aka greed)

foinker 3y ago

It's true that many many places overextended themselves while under the influence of ZIRP. However, I think it's giving the execs/boards too much credit to say they're reluctant to do layoffs because the tech isn't there yet. Everyone is eager to get on the AI train because they want to pay fewer employees.