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> There is a lot of debate whether AI will surpass humans in all economically viable skills (AGI, by one definition). Actually very little debate. We get a lot

> There is a lot of debate whether AI will surpass humans in all economically viable skills (AGI, by one definition). Actually very little debate. We get a lot of unsubstantiated hype from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft. So-called AI has barely made a dent in economic activities, and no company makes money from it. Tech journalism repeatedly fails to question the PR narrative (read Ed Zitron). > Regardless of whether this will happen, or when, many people already have lost their jobs in part due to the emerging capabilities of AI models… Consider the more likely explanation: many companies over-hired a few years ago and have cut jobs. Focus on stock price in an uncertain economy leads to layoffs. Easier to blame AI for layoffs than admitting C-suite management incompetence. Fear of the AI boogeyman gives employers the upper hand in hiring and salary negotiations, and keeps employers in line out of fear.

paulcole 1y ago
> Actually very little debate Isn’t the debate about timeline? Do you really believe there is a 0% chance that AI will surpass humans in all economically viable skills in the next say 100,000 years? If not, what confidence do you have in it?
- gregjor 1y ago
  I didn’t make any claims about the long-term prospects of AI, not sure where you got that. 100,000 years — 20 times longer than recorded history — presents a ridiculous horizon to predict anything. Whatever happens on that time scale will have nothing to do with anyone now alive, or tech companies laying people off today. Based on the current state of AI I don’t think it replaces much economically viable human activity. Over time our definition of “economically viable” will change, as it has for the last 100,000 years.
  - paulcole 1y ago
    > I didn’t make any claims about the long-term prospects of AI Actually you did. Someone else said that “There is a lot of debate whether AI will surpass humans in all economically viable skills” and you said, “Actually very little debate.” The absence of a timeline means that either you are talking about a very long timeline or you enjoy being vague so that you can feel like your predictions turn out to be correct. Which is it? > Based on the current state of AI I don’t think it replaces much economically viable human activity How much is not much? 5% or 22%? > Over time our definition of “economically viable” will change, as it has for the last 100,000 years What our definition of “economically viable” 100,000 years ago? What is it today?
waste_monk 1y ago
>So-called AI has barely made a dent in economic activities, and no company makes money from it. Tell that to NVidia!
- HenryBemis 1y ago
  I have "programmed" Copilot to do some Q&A work. For my org the team should scale to 50 to make it effective. My idea and implementation will keep us to ~20 with the capability of dropping it to 5 (organically). I don't think anyone will double my salary though, so there is your real life impact. Now take that and apply it to at least "10 areas" in every org above 10k headcount. It won't change life on earth, but considering that this has just began...
  - waste_monk 1y ago
    Oh, I just meant the post I was replying to said >and no company makes money from it. and I was pointing out NVidia are making very good money, in a "selling shovels during a gold rush" sense.
atleastoptimal 1y ago
> Actually very little debate. We get a lot of unsubstantiated hype from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft Would you really consider the Nobel laureates Geoffrey Hinton¹, Demis Hassabis² and Barack Obama³ not worth listening to on this matter? Demis is the only one with ulterior motives to hype it up, but compared to normal tech CEOs he certainly has quite a bit of proven impact (Alphafold, AlphaZero) to be worth listening to. > AI has barely made a dent in economic activities AI companies' revenues are growing rapidly, reaching the tens of billions. The claim that it's just a scapegoat for inevitable layoffs seems fanciful when there are many real-life cases of AI tools performing equivalent person-hours work in white-collar domains. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-lawyer-used-ai-help-win-case-clearbrief-2025-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-lawyer-used-ai-help-win-... To claim it is impossible that AI could be at least a partial cause of layoffs requires an unshakable belief that AI tools could not even be labor-multiplying (as in allowing one person to perform more work at the same level of quality than they would otherwise). To assume that this has never happened by this point in 2025 requires a heavy amount of denial. That being said, I could cite dozens of articles, numerous takes from leading experts, scientists, legitimate sources without conflicts of interest, and I'm certain a fair portion of the HN regulars would not be swayed one inch. Lively debate is the lifeblood of any domain that prides itself on intellectual rigor, but a lot of the dismissal of the actual utility of AI, the impending impacts, and its implications feels like reflexive coping. I would really really love to hear an argument that convinced me that AGI is impossible, or far away, or that all the utility I get from Claude, o3 or Gemini are all just tricks of scale and memorization entirely orthogonal to something somewhat akin to general human-like intelligence. However, I have not heard a good argument. The replies I get seem to be largely ad-hominems toward tech CEOs, dismissive characterizations of the tech industry at large, and thought-terminating quips that hold no ontological weight. 1: https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-geoffrey-hinton-godfather-of-ai-future-ai/ https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-geoffrey-hinton-godfat... 2: https://www.axios.com/2025/05/21/google-sergey-brin-demis-hassabis-agi-2030 https://www.axios.com/2025/05/21/google-sergey-brin-demis-ha... 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72bHop6AIcc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72bHop6AIcc 4: https://www.cio.com/article/4012162/ai-begins-to-reshape-the-it-job-landscape-as-layoffs-rise.html https://www.cio.com/article/4012162/ai-begins-to-reshape-the...
- 1y ago
bravesoul2 1y ago
People lost their jobs because of tax changes.
- happymellon 1y ago
  And the tax code makes sense, because it was a Trump tax and a lot of these companies support him so have to tow the line. It couldn't be that people lost jobs because of the policies they voted for.
- gregjor 1y ago
  Yes. When the dust settles and the data gets crunched I expect tax code changes and a glut of money looking for returns will explain the layoffs much better than AI doing anything useful.

paulcole 1y ago

> Actually very little debate Isn’t the debate about timeline? Do you really believe there is a 0% chance that AI will surpass humans in all economically viable skills in the next say 100,000 years? If not, what confidence do you have in it?

gregjor 1y ago
I didn’t make any claims about the long-term prospects of AI, not sure where you got that. 100,000 years — 20 times longer than recorded history — presents a ridiculous horizon to predict anything. Whatever happens on that time scale will have nothing to do with anyone now alive, or tech companies laying people off today. Based on the current state of AI I don’t think it replaces much economically viable human activity. Over time our definition of “economically viable” will change, as it has for the last 100,000 years.
- paulcole 1y ago
  > I didn’t make any claims about the long-term prospects of AI Actually you did. Someone else said that “There is a lot of debate whether AI will surpass humans in all economically viable skills” and you said, “Actually very little debate.” The absence of a timeline means that either you are talking about a very long timeline or you enjoy being vague so that you can feel like your predictions turn out to be correct. Which is it? > Based on the current state of AI I don’t think it replaces much economically viable human activity How much is not much? 5% or 22%? > Over time our definition of “economically viable” will change, as it has for the last 100,000 years What our definition of “economically viable” 100,000 years ago? What is it today?

waste_monk 1y ago

>So-called AI has barely made a dent in economic activities, and no company makes money from it. Tell that to NVidia!

HenryBemis 1y ago
I have "programmed" Copilot to do some Q&A work. For my org the team should scale to 50 to make it effective. My idea and implementation will keep us to ~20 with the capability of dropping it to 5 (organically). I don't think anyone will double my salary though, so there is your real life impact. Now take that and apply it to at least "10 areas" in every org above 10k headcount. It won't change life on earth, but considering that this has just began...
- waste_monk 1y ago
  Oh, I just meant the post I was replying to said >and no company makes money from it. and I was pointing out NVidia are making very good money, in a "selling shovels during a gold rush" sense.

atleastoptimal 1y ago

> Actually very little debate. We get a lot of unsubstantiated hype from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft Would you really consider the Nobel laureates Geoffrey Hinton¹, Demis Hassabis² and Barack Obama³ not worth listening to on this matter? Demis is the only one with ulterior motives to hype it up, but compared to normal tech CEOs he certainly has quite a bit of proven impact (Alphafold, AlphaZero) to be worth listening to. > AI has barely made a dent in economic activities AI companies' revenues are growing rapidly, reaching the tens of billions. The claim that it's just a scapegoat for inevitable layoffs seems fanciful when there are many real-life cases of AI tools performing equivalent person-hours work in white-collar domains. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-lawyer-used-ai-help-win-case-clearbrief-2025-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-lawyer-used-ai-help-win-... To claim it is impossible that AI could be at least a partial cause of layoffs requires an unshakable belief that AI tools could not even be labor-multiplying (as in allowing one person to perform more work at the same level of quality than they would otherwise). To assume that this has never happened by this point in 2025 requires a heavy amount of denial. That being said, I could cite dozens of articles, numerous takes from leading experts, scientists, legitimate sources without conflicts of interest, and I'm certain a fair portion of the HN regulars would not be swayed one inch. Lively debate is the lifeblood of any domain that prides itself on intellectual rigor, but a lot of the dismissal of the actual utility of AI, the impending impacts, and its implications feels like reflexive coping. I would really really love to hear an argument that convinced me that AGI is impossible, or far away, or that all the utility I get from Claude, o3 or Gemini are all just tricks of scale and memorization entirely orthogonal to something somewhat akin to general human-like intelligence. However, I have not heard a good argument. The replies I get seem to be largely ad-hominems toward tech CEOs, dismissive characterizations of the tech industry at large, and thought-terminating quips that hold no ontological weight. 1: https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-geoffrey-hinton-godfather-of-ai-future-ai/ https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-geoffrey-hinton-godfat... 2: https://www.axios.com/2025/05/21/google-sergey-brin-demis-hassabis-agi-2030 https://www.axios.com/2025/05/21/google-sergey-brin-demis-ha... 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72bHop6AIcc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72bHop6AIcc 4: https://www.cio.com/article/4012162/ai-begins-to-reshape-the-it-job-landscape-as-layoffs-rise.html https://www.cio.com/article/4012162/ai-begins-to-reshape-the...

1y ago

bravesoul2 1y ago

People lost their jobs because of tax changes.

happymellon 1y ago
And the tax code makes sense, because it was a Trump tax and a lot of these companies support him so have to tow the line. It couldn't be that people lost jobs because of the policies they voted for.
gregjor 1y ago
Yes. When the dust settles and the data gets crunched I expect tax code changes and a glut of money looking for returns will explain the layoffs much better than AI doing anything useful.