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I can't find the article anymore but I remember reading almost 10 years ago an article on the economist saying that the result of automation was not removal of

I can't find the article anymore but I remember reading almost 10 years ago an article on the economist saying that the result of automation was not removal of jobs but more work + less junior employment positions. The example they gave was search engine + digital documents removed the junior lawyer headcount by a lot. Prior to digital documents, a fairly common junior lawyer task was: "we have a upcoming court case. Go to the (physical) archive and find past cases relevant to current case. Here's things to check for:" and this task would be assigned to a team of junior (3-10 people). But now one junior with a laptop suffice. As a result the firm can also manage more cases. Seems like a pretty general pattern.

PeterStuer 1y ago
We have an infinite capacity in 'making' work. It just shifts from real productivity to make-work overhead. Pfiefdoms and empires will be maintained.
toxik 1y ago
I don't know about lawyering, but with engineering research, I can now ask ChatGPT's Deep Research to do a literature review on any topic. This used to take time and effort.
- camdenreslink 1y ago
  If you don't know about lawyering, then how do you know if the literature review is any good? It's the same thing as a non-programmer asking an LLM to vibe code an application. They have no idea about the quality.
  - rainonmoon 1y ago
    I think the point with most applications of LLMs is that the users don’t care if it’s good, only if it’s good enough. How much despair this induces is down to your bias for whatever subject is being reduced.
yieldcrv 1y ago
15 years ago I created my own LLC, work experience from some contracts, and had a friend answer the reference checks I skipped over junior positions for the most part I don’t see that not working now
breppp 1y ago
Bullshit Jobs, both the article and the subsequent book explore this theme a lot https://libcom.org/article/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-graeber https://libcom.org/article/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-gr...
- PeterStuer 1y ago
  Read the article. The book is just a long boring elongation without new content.
  - breppp 1y ago
    I do not agree, I think the book is much more interesting than the article. For example the type of jobs such as Box Tickers and Flunkies, as well some really interesting anecdotes
    - PeterStuer 1y ago
      Loved the article. Bought the book. I put it down before halfway as it was poorly written longform pagefilling. If it came out today I would totally understand someone calling AI slop on it. "Here's my popular article, re-write it book lenght for me".
- rcxdude 1y ago
  I think this idea generally doesn't bear out, at least as described in the book. For the most part, the kinds of jobs that are potentially actually mostly bullshit, are generally not considered it by those who do them, while those that he would characterise as just "shit jobs" will generally have a high percentage of percieved bullshit by those who work them. I am amenable to the idea that there is a lot of wasted pointless work, but not to the idea that there's some kayfabe arrangement where everyone involved thinks it's pointless but pretends otherwise, I think generally most people around such work have actually convinced themselves it's important.
Balgair 1y ago
Dwarkesh had a good interview with Zuck the other week. And in it, Zuck had an interesting example (that I'm going to butcher): FB has long wanted to have a call center for its ~3.5B users. But that call center would automatically be the largest in history and cost ~15B/yr to run. Something that is cost ineffective in the extreme. But, with FB's internal AIs, they're starting to think that a call center may be feasible. Most of the calls are going to be 'I forgot my password' and 'it's broken' anyways. So having a robot guide people along the FAQs in the 50+ languages is perfectly fine for ~90% (Zuck's number here) of the calls. Then, with the harder calls, you can actually route it to a human. So, to me, this is a great example of how the interaction of new tech and labor is a fractal not a hierarchy. In that, with each new tech that your specific labor sector finds, you get this fractalization of the labor in the end. Zuck would have never thought of a call center, denying the labor of many people. But this new tech allows for a call center that looks a lot like the old one, just with only the hard problems. It's smaller, yes, but it looks the same and yet is slightly different (hence a fractal). Look, I'm not going to argue that tech is disruptive. But what I am arguing is that tech makes new jobs (most of the time), it's just that these new jobs tend to be dealing with much harder problems. Like, we''re pushing the boundaries here, and that boundary gets more fractal-y, and it's a more niche and harder working environment for your brain. The issue, of course, is that, like a grad student, you have to trust in the person working at the boundary is actually doing work and not just blowing smoke. That issue, the one of trust, I think is the key issue to 'solve'. Cal Newport talks a lot about this now and how these knowledge worker tasks really don't do much for a long time, and then they have these spats of genius. It's a tough one, and not an intellectual enterprise, but an emotional one.
- wslh 1y ago
  Sorry for the acidity, just training my patience while waiting for the mythical FB/AI call center.
  - Maxion 1y ago
    As someone who has been involved with customer support (on the in-house tech side) the very vast majority of contacts to a CS team will be very inane or extremely inane. If you can automate away the lowest tier of support with LLMs you'll improve response times for not just the simple questions but also for the hard ones.
jvanderbot 1y ago
You either believe that companies are trying to grow as much as possible within their current budget, or not. Automation is one way to do that.
f_allwein 1y ago
The Productivity Paradox is officially a thing. Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox
tom_m 1y ago
Definitely. When computers came out, jobs increased. When the Internet became widely used, jobs increased. AI is simply another tool. The sad part is, do you think we'll see this productivity gain as an opportunity to stop the culture of over working? I don't think so. I think people will expect more from others because of AI. If AI makes employees twice as efficient, do you think companies will decrease working hours or cut their employment in half? I don't think so. It's human nature to want more. If 2 is good, 4 is surely better. So instead of reducing employment, companies will keep the same number of employees because that's already factored into their budget. Now they get more output to better compete with their competitors. To reduce staff would be to be at a disadvantage. So why do we hear stories about people being let go? AI is currently a scapegoat for companies that were operating inefficiently and over-hired. It was already going to happen. AI just gave some of these larger tech companies a really good excuse. They weren't exactly going to admit their make a mistake and over-hired, now were they? Nope. AI was the perfect excuse. As all things, it's cyclical. Hiring will go up again. AI boom will bust. On to the next thing. One thing is for certain though, we all now have a fancy new calculator.
- sztanko 1y ago
  Well, I think productivity gains should correlate with stock price growth. If we want stock prices to increase exponentially, sales must also grow exponentially, which means we need to become exponentially more productive. We can stop that — or we can stop tying company profitability to stock prices, which is already happening to some extent. And when we talk about 'greedy shareholders,' remember that often means pension funds - essentially our savings and our hope for a decent retirement, assuming productivity continues to grow exponentially.
  - tom_m 1y ago
    I don't think we can stop that unfortunately. Stock prices are tied to company profitability. That's how it works. In part. The other part is called over valued. That happens more and more. But I mean, nothing new of course. Sometimes it's a scheme too. Pump and dump.
BobbyTables2 1y ago
Copilot found this based on your description: https://impact.economist.com/projects/responsible-innovation-matters/blogs/automation-is-not-to-be-feared https://impact.economist.com/projects/responsible-innovation...
begueradj 1y ago
Without junior positions there is no future senior positions.
- lazide 1y ago
  Which works great for current seniors trying to continue getting paid, eh?
- rainonmoon 1y ago
  I think this is a feature rather than a bug for AI advocates who ultimately dream of a day when they can do away with pesky things like labor forces and be a CEO of their own rentier-capitalist empire without hassle. Employees are just a vestigial obstacle holding down the brilliant visionaries at the top.
lazide 1y ago
When the economic reports say ‘gains were due to improvements in economic efficiency’ that is exactly what they are describing.
odiroot 1y ago
This is like a mini parallel of the industrial revolution. A lot of places starting with a large and unskilled workforce, getting into e.g. textile industry (which brings better RoI than farming). Then the automation arrives but it leaves a lot of people jobless (still being unskilled) while there's new jobs in maintaining the machinery etc.
sanderjd 1y ago
Isn't this literally just "productivity growth". You (and I think the article) are describing the ability to do more work with the same number of people, which seems like the economic definition of productivity.
- eagerpace 1y ago
  If we explain the same thing with different words then the marketing team can spin it to be more important than it really is.

PeterStuer 1y ago

We have an infinite capacity in 'making' work. It just shifts from real productivity to make-work overhead. Pfiefdoms and empires will be maintained.

toxik 1y ago

I don't know about lawyering, but with engineering research, I can now ask ChatGPT's Deep Research to do a literature review on any topic. This used to take time and effort.

camdenreslink 1y ago
If you don't know about lawyering, then how do you know if the literature review is any good? It's the same thing as a non-programmer asking an LLM to vibe code an application. They have no idea about the quality.
- rainonmoon 1y ago
  I think the point with most applications of LLMs is that the users don’t care if it’s good, only if it’s good enough. How much despair this induces is down to your bias for whatever subject is being reduced.

yieldcrv 1y ago

15 years ago I created my own LLC, work experience from some contracts, and had a friend answer the reference checks I skipped over junior positions for the most part I don’t see that not working now

breppp 1y ago

Bullshit Jobs, both the article and the subsequent book explore this theme a lot https://libcom.org/article/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-graeber https://libcom.org/article/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-gr...

PeterStuer 1y ago
Read the article. The book is just a long boring elongation without new content.
- breppp 1y ago
  I do not agree, I think the book is much more interesting than the article. For example the type of jobs such as Box Tickers and Flunkies, as well some really interesting anecdotes
  - PeterStuer 1y ago
    Loved the article. Bought the book. I put it down before halfway as it was poorly written longform pagefilling. If it came out today I would totally understand someone calling AI slop on it. "Here's my popular article, re-write it book lenght for me".
rcxdude 1y ago
I think this idea generally doesn't bear out, at least as described in the book. For the most part, the kinds of jobs that are potentially actually mostly bullshit, are generally not considered it by those who do them, while those that he would characterise as just "shit jobs" will generally have a high percentage of percieved bullshit by those who work them. I am amenable to the idea that there is a lot of wasted pointless work, but not to the idea that there's some kayfabe arrangement where everyone involved thinks it's pointless but pretends otherwise, I think generally most people around such work have actually convinced themselves it's important.

Balgair 1y ago

Dwarkesh had a good interview with Zuck the other week. And in it, Zuck had an interesting example (that I'm going to butcher): FB has long wanted to have a call center for its ~3.5B users. But that call center would automatically be the largest in history and cost ~15B/yr to run. Something that is cost ineffective in the extreme. But, with FB's internal AIs, they're starting to think that a call center may be feasible. Most of the calls are going to be 'I forgot my password' and 'it's broken' anyways. So having a robot guide people along the FAQs in the 50+ languages is perfectly fine for ~90% (Zuck's number here) of the calls. Then, with the harder calls, you can actually route it to a human. So, to me, this is a great example of how the interaction of new tech and labor is a fractal not a hierarchy. In that, with each new tech that your specific labor sector finds, you get this fractalization of the labor in the end. Zuck would have never thought of a call center, denying the labor of many people. But this new tech allows for a call center that looks a lot like the old one, just with only the hard problems. It's smaller, yes, but it looks the same and yet is slightly different (hence a fractal). Look, I'm not going to argue that tech is disruptive. But what I am arguing is that tech makes new jobs (most of the time), it's just that these new jobs tend to be dealing with much harder problems. Like, we''re pushing the boundaries here, and that boundary gets more fractal-y, and it's a more niche and harder working environment for your brain. The issue, of course, is that, like a grad student, you have to trust in the person working at the boundary is actually doing work and not just blowing smoke. That issue, the one of trust, I think is the key issue to 'solve'. Cal Newport talks a lot about this now and how these knowledge worker tasks really don't do much for a long time, and then they have these spats of genius. It's a tough one, and not an intellectual enterprise, but an emotional one.

wslh 1y ago
Sorry for the acidity, just training my patience while waiting for the mythical FB/AI call center.
- Maxion 1y ago
  As someone who has been involved with customer support (on the in-house tech side) the very vast majority of contacts to a CS team will be very inane or extremely inane. If you can automate away the lowest tier of support with LLMs you'll improve response times for not just the simple questions but also for the hard ones.

jvanderbot 1y ago

You either believe that companies are trying to grow as much as possible within their current budget, or not. Automation is one way to do that.

f_allwein 1y ago

The Productivity Paradox is officially a thing. Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox

tom_m 1y ago

Definitely. When computers came out, jobs increased. When the Internet became widely used, jobs increased. AI is simply another tool. The sad part is, do you think we'll see this productivity gain as an opportunity to stop the culture of over working? I don't think so. I think people will expect more from others because of AI. If AI makes employees twice as efficient, do you think companies will decrease working hours or cut their employment in half? I don't think so. It's human nature to want more. If 2 is good, 4 is surely better. So instead of reducing employment, companies will keep the same number of employees because that's already factored into their budget. Now they get more output to better compete with their competitors. To reduce staff would be to be at a disadvantage. So why do we hear stories about people being let go? AI is currently a scapegoat for companies that were operating inefficiently and over-hired. It was already going to happen. AI just gave some of these larger tech companies a really good excuse. They weren't exactly going to admit their make a mistake and over-hired, now were they? Nope. AI was the perfect excuse. As all things, it's cyclical. Hiring will go up again. AI boom will bust. On to the next thing. One thing is for certain though, we all now have a fancy new calculator.

sztanko 1y ago
Well, I think productivity gains should correlate with stock price growth. If we want stock prices to increase exponentially, sales must also grow exponentially, which means we need to become exponentially more productive. We can stop that — or we can stop tying company profitability to stock prices, which is already happening to some extent. And when we talk about 'greedy shareholders,' remember that often means pension funds - essentially our savings and our hope for a decent retirement, assuming productivity continues to grow exponentially.
- tom_m 1y ago
  I don't think we can stop that unfortunately. Stock prices are tied to company profitability. That's how it works. In part. The other part is called over valued. That happens more and more. But I mean, nothing new of course. Sometimes it's a scheme too. Pump and dump.

BobbyTables2 1y ago

Copilot found this based on your description: https://impact.economist.com/projects/responsible-innovation-matters/blogs/automation-is-not-to-be-feared https://impact.economist.com/projects/responsible-innovation...

begueradj 1y ago

Without junior positions there is no future senior positions.

lazide 1y ago
Which works great for current seniors trying to continue getting paid, eh?
rainonmoon 1y ago
I think this is a feature rather than a bug for AI advocates who ultimately dream of a day when they can do away with pesky things like labor forces and be a CEO of their own rentier-capitalist empire without hassle. Employees are just a vestigial obstacle holding down the brilliant visionaries at the top.

lazide 1y ago

When the economic reports say ‘gains were due to improvements in economic efficiency’ that is exactly what they are describing.

odiroot 1y ago

This is like a mini parallel of the industrial revolution. A lot of places starting with a large and unskilled workforce, getting into e.g. textile industry (which brings better RoI than farming). Then the automation arrives but it leaves a lot of people jobless (still being unskilled) while there's new jobs in maintaining the machinery etc.

sanderjd 1y ago

Isn't this literally just "productivity growth". You (and I think the article) are describing the ability to do more work with the same number of people, which seems like the economic definition of productivity.

eagerpace 1y ago
If we explain the same thing with different words then the marketing team can spin it to be more important than it really is.