7 ms·

What if this turns into rust belt but for software? Once high paying jobs gone with AI, politicians trying to please grumpy software developers promising them t

by mrtksn 1y ago

What if this turns into rust belt but for software? Once high paying jobs gone with AI, politicians trying to please grumpy software developers promising them to open a software shop and create jobs. Mostly college drop-outs, voting for a certain party that promises to take on AI :) Half kidding of course, but AFAIK many industries went through such a transformation and today most social and political issues stem from those areas that once were affluent lost their industries. Why not the software too?

exabrial 1y ago
Literally no jobs are going away due to AI.
- mrtksn 1y ago
  Sure, in total probably there will be even more and better jobs. Just like with the auto industry or the other industries that turned from producing stuff into designing stuff and telling to Chinese to produce it like this.
  - mat_b 1y ago
    That's not the whole picture. There are less positions available where you tell someone else what to do and more competition for those positions.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    Define “jobs.” A lot of the “jobs” created by offshoring production involved being service workers for the 25% of knowledge workers who benefit from offshoring.
- hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
  This is easily, demonstrably false. The Washington Post ran an article over 2 years ago of specific, documented instances where people lost their jobs due to ChatGPT: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/02/ai-taking-jobs/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/02/ai-taki...
  - pj_mukh 1y ago
    As per your article: “But Mollick said it’s too early to gauge how disruptive AI will be to the workforce. ” I’d like a follow up article when I’m guessing a good chunk of these writers were hired back when their managers realized ChatGPT can’t help replace real creative writing output. It can only create more dead internet spaces that don’t make money long term. There will always be bad managers making shitty decisions and journalists and CEO's eager to confirm a narrative, AI or no-AI Source: Building an AI production studio myself and the first thing we had to do was hire writers to drive the creative effort.
    - fuzzfactor 1y ago
      When a manager prefers AI over a proven-performing employee, I would expect a lot if times it is becuse the AI is more intelligent than the manager, not the employee.
  - rapsey 1y ago
    Looking at things in the micro scale and expecting it to translate directly into a macro scale is stupidity.
    - lazyasciiart 1y ago
      Maybe you should say that directly to the grandparent comment who did that.
- speakfreely 1y ago
  "Jobs going away due to AI" really tracks two different outcomes: - The type of job is eliminated due to AI - The amount of people doing a type of job is substantially reduced because AI increases the productivity of people in that role and companies can do the same amount of that work with less people I think the former is extremely limited so far, but the latter is pretty substantial. I didn't downvote you, but I imagine the people that did probably did so to reject the former argument.
  - nothercastle 1y ago
    The most common one is simply we wanted to cut heads and used ai as an excuse. Also AI spend is probably a huge drag on a lot of companies that are getting nothing off value but burning a lot
- krapp 1y ago
  AI has already replaced thousands of jobs. Plenty of stories about that appear on HN. Plenty of anecdotes from people who have lost work or clients to AI. People here have stated their intention to fire their entire workforce and replace them with AI as soon as possible. AI companies have put up billboards saying "stop hiring humans." A single Google search would disabuse you of this notion. I don't understand being this willfully naive, especially if you support AI, because using it to replace jobs is the entire selling point. No company wants AI for any other reason, and every company wants AI.
- platevoltage 1y ago
  The word “literally” is doing a LOT of work here.
- hazek112 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - platevoltage 1y ago
    What is wrong with this comment section.
    - cjohnson318 1y ago
      Racism? Lack of social awareness? Problems with impulse control? Trolling? Pick several.
    - jalapenos 1y ago
      Mostly it's comprised of people angry with their lives and people in them, who need a quick cheap external target to rail against as a vent for that anger. That's why you see so much aggressive black-white positions, nit-picking, and wording that intentionally floats just below the rule-breaking line of outright calling the other person a moron or piece of s---.
- nothercastle 1y ago
  Art jobs got destroyed everything else AI was just a excuse
- cjohnson318 1y ago
  I've lost consulting work because I'm a lot more expensive than $20 a month. I've literally had clients say, "yeah, I would have called you, but I was able to figure out that bug with ChatGPT."
  - edoceo 1y ago
    Once the bugs stack up, they'll call you back and it will be lots of billable hours. At least, that was the case for me; only took a few weeks before the clients own inconsistent requirements bite them in the ass. Gotta have a business+tech expert to make many products. AI is neither; and many folks can't prompt for shit (and can't spec for shit; and can't test for shit).
    - platevoltage 1y ago
      Not to discredit anyone else's experiences, but I have one client, who admittedly has gotten pretty good at "vibe coding", and he has been tasking me with all kinds of stuff that would have probably remained just as idea. Don't get me wrong, I don't like AI. I don't like that I have to use it sometimes, and I think we were better off without it, but so far it hasn't hurt me. It's definitely made me way less employable in the traditional sense. I feel sorry for the new grads/self taught people trying to get jobs.
      - cjohnson318 1y ago
        That an interesting perspective, about working on a lot of your client's vibe coded fever dreams. Yeah, I'm don't envy 19 year olds looking for software work right now. God help them.
    - cjohnson318 1y ago
      Well, I moved into a more conservative role, which I think was a good move considering the economy and the job market.
- victorbjorklund 1y ago
  Of course there will be. There will be instances where a company has 4 people working in a role but with AI 2 people can do the same job and they can therefore let 2 people go. (and then there will be other places where even more jobs are created because of AI).
  - jalapenos 1y ago
    This is just an admission you don't know where work comes from. Like you think there's a fixed size of pie of work. If the company has a legal monopoly that prevents competition, sure. Otherwise, unless they're dumb and want to risk the other two leaving, they'll task all 4 of them to use the AI to accomplish things that were infeasible or uneconomical before, to try win market share or increase margins.
    - ulfw 1y ago
      You are assuming human resources are hired based on budget only instead of need. Your assumption is: "we have 400,000$ to spend on something. Oh okay let's spend them on hiring 4 engineers at 100k each" and with AI they just happen to be as efficient as 8 engineers. Yay. They'll just do more things. This might be the case at startups. For mid to larger size companies very often it is though: "we have X amount of work/projects/maintenance/support to do. How many people do we need and how much do we need to budget for that? Oh we need about 4? Will 400,000$ do? Okay let's go". In this case yes. If a $200/month AI subscription can bring those 4 people down to 3 or even 2 of course the company will lay off.
    - lovich 1y ago
      How do you square your comment with the fact that companies routinely engage in mass layoffs when they are profitable already?
      - csa 1y ago
        > How do you square your comment with the fact that companies routinely engage in mass layoffs when they are profitable already? Not op, but… Just because a company is profitable doesn’t mean that they make good decisions around hiring.
- chinchilla2020 1y ago
  helpdesk
giantg2 1y ago
Everywhere has a boom-bust cycle. The question is just on what timeline. It typically takes decades to happen. When is anyone's guess.
- oceansky 1y ago
  Not always. Some industries just never come back. Where is the oil lamp or camera film industry now?
  - fiddlerwoaroof 1y ago
    I think defining industries this narrowly isn’t helpful
  - platevoltage 1y ago
    The lamp industry didn't go anywhere. The Camera industry didn't go anywhere. Might as well be saying, where has the CRT monitor or Macromedia Flash industry now?
b3ing 1y ago
We are giving India the IT market, just like China got manufacturing.
- mertleee 1y ago
  It's precisely this. Trump is allowing one of the last vestiges of the American middle class to be outsourced to India. Just like Clinton allowed the same to happen with factory jobs to China. As a person of color this is even more detestable.
  - ipnon 1y ago
    As a person of grayscale the contrast is undeniable.
    - the_third_wave 1y ago
      You Grayscale people have it easy, at least you have contrast. As a person of Transparency I end up overlooked everywhere all the time.
  - platevoltage 1y ago
    At least we will be able to get jobs putting plastic forks in boxes now. Maybe we will be able to use those green GitHub tiles to negotiate better pay.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - rayiner 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - MangoCoffee 1y ago
    "No More Offshore. Startups Look to Spend and Hire in U.S. Due to Trump Tax Change." https://www.wsj.com/tech/tech-startups-hiring-us-workers-30f70207?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAjDWgoNcII2_AQilabzgWCa5KqkWx6A_GLDa3RsEYaSNGbtcsA7Tt1X&gaa_ts=689ff101&gaa_sig=OlDvonPp-TtrTejwuvXDdA7kEv-tclp61-D-XF2Llp5Vgjm3LB38Kx4HB_WK3uxYcGpejPrD8wfK3epbQLs-RA%3D%3D https://www.wsj.com/tech/tech-startups-hiring-us-workers-30f... I don't understand how Trump is allowing anything with headline like this.
dmonitor 1y ago
The rust belt can't really fall back on tourism like California can. Worst case scenario all software jobs evaporate and it becomes Florida with better weather
- jurking_hoff 1y ago
  [dead]
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  There are plenty of dying places in the desert and on the beach tourists can visit, it's just the "dying places" part that makes them aversive to tourism.
- dangus 1y ago
  LA has a highly diverse economy, it’s really only the Bay Area that has diversification issues. The rust belt actually does quite well with tourism, though my research for responding to your comment seems to indicate to me that tourism is important everywhere.
  - aworks 1y ago
    Back in the 90s, it was the opposite as miliary/aerospace declined in SoCal. I'm a native Michigander and long-time Californian (both subject to booms/busts) who recently took a road trip to the Midwest and back. If it weren't for family and friends, I probably wouldn't venture east of the 100th parallel. I was surprised by this.
- al_borland 1y ago
  I’m over in the rust belt and all I hear about California these days is it’s full of homeless people and crime that goes unchecked. It’s not looking as appealing as a vacation destination as it did 20 years ago. Maybe this perception doesn’t match the reality you see living there, but when it comes to attracting tourists, perception is everything.
  - justonceokay 1y ago
throw0101c 1y ago
> Why not the software too? Would it be any worse than the Dot-com bust? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble
Buttons840 1y ago
> What if this turns into rust belt We're rewriting the belt.
- geophph 1y ago
  Ah ha!
flashgordon 1y ago
Haha so true. Though I feel for this to happen the cost of building software products has to be high. With manufacturing your average mechanical eng grad cannot build something and sell (factories' costs etc) out the gate. With software any body can build and put something out there (ignoring quality and tech debt and taste etc). Where software might go the way of manufacturing is when price of ai actually reflects hardware costs (my estimates of the realistic Claude max pricing at cost is between 7-10k and month). Now put together other structures that will come up to "industrialize" ai+software software may not have easy entries sadly.

by mrtksn 1y ago

exabrial 1y ago

Literally no jobs are going away due to AI.

mrtksn 1y ago
Sure, in total probably there will be even more and better jobs. Just like with the auto industry or the other industries that turned from producing stuff into designing stuff and telling to Chinese to produce it like this.
- mat_b 1y ago
  That's not the whole picture. There are less positions available where you tell someone else what to do and more competition for those positions.
- rayiner 1y ago
  Define “jobs.” A lot of the “jobs” created by offshoring production involved being service workers for the 25% of knowledge workers who benefit from offshoring.
hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
This is easily, demonstrably false. The Washington Post ran an article over 2 years ago of specific, documented instances where people lost their jobs due to ChatGPT: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/02/ai-taking-jobs/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/02/ai-taki...
- pj_mukh 1y ago
  As per your article: “But Mollick said it’s too early to gauge how disruptive AI will be to the workforce. ” I’d like a follow up article when I’m guessing a good chunk of these writers were hired back when their managers realized ChatGPT can’t help replace real creative writing output. It can only create more dead internet spaces that don’t make money long term. There will always be bad managers making shitty decisions and journalists and CEO's eager to confirm a narrative, AI or no-AI Source: Building an AI production studio myself and the first thing we had to do was hire writers to drive the creative effort.
  - fuzzfactor 1y ago
    When a manager prefers AI over a proven-performing employee, I would expect a lot if times it is becuse the AI is more intelligent than the manager, not the employee.
- rapsey 1y ago
  Looking at things in the micro scale and expecting it to translate directly into a macro scale is stupidity.
  - lazyasciiart 1y ago
    Maybe you should say that directly to the grandparent comment who did that.
speakfreely 1y ago
"Jobs going away due to AI" really tracks two different outcomes: - The type of job is eliminated due to AI - The amount of people doing a type of job is substantially reduced because AI increases the productivity of people in that role and companies can do the same amount of that work with less people I think the former is extremely limited so far, but the latter is pretty substantial. I didn't downvote you, but I imagine the people that did probably did so to reject the former argument.
- nothercastle 1y ago
  The most common one is simply we wanted to cut heads and used ai as an excuse. Also AI spend is probably a huge drag on a lot of companies that are getting nothing off value but burning a lot
krapp 1y ago
AI has already replaced thousands of jobs. Plenty of stories about that appear on HN. Plenty of anecdotes from people who have lost work or clients to AI. People here have stated their intention to fire their entire workforce and replace them with AI as soon as possible. AI companies have put up billboards saying "stop hiring humans." A single Google search would disabuse you of this notion. I don't understand being this willfully naive, especially if you support AI, because using it to replace jobs is the entire selling point. No company wants AI for any other reason, and every company wants AI.
platevoltage 1y ago
The word “literally” is doing a LOT of work here.
hazek112 1y ago
[flagged]
- platevoltage 1y ago
  What is wrong with this comment section.
  - cjohnson318 1y ago
    Racism? Lack of social awareness? Problems with impulse control? Trolling? Pick several.
  - jalapenos 1y ago
    Mostly it's comprised of people angry with their lives and people in them, who need a quick cheap external target to rail against as a vent for that anger. That's why you see so much aggressive black-white positions, nit-picking, and wording that intentionally floats just below the rule-breaking line of outright calling the other person a moron or piece of s---.
nothercastle 1y ago
Art jobs got destroyed everything else AI was just a excuse
cjohnson318 1y ago
I've lost consulting work because I'm a lot more expensive than $20 a month. I've literally had clients say, "yeah, I would have called you, but I was able to figure out that bug with ChatGPT."
- edoceo 1y ago
  Once the bugs stack up, they'll call you back and it will be lots of billable hours. At least, that was the case for me; only took a few weeks before the clients own inconsistent requirements bite them in the ass. Gotta have a business+tech expert to make many products. AI is neither; and many folks can't prompt for shit (and can't spec for shit; and can't test for shit).
  - platevoltage 1y ago
    Not to discredit anyone else's experiences, but I have one client, who admittedly has gotten pretty good at "vibe coding", and he has been tasking me with all kinds of stuff that would have probably remained just as idea. Don't get me wrong, I don't like AI. I don't like that I have to use it sometimes, and I think we were better off without it, but so far it hasn't hurt me. It's definitely made me way less employable in the traditional sense. I feel sorry for the new grads/self taught people trying to get jobs.
    - cjohnson318 1y ago
      That an interesting perspective, about working on a lot of your client's vibe coded fever dreams. Yeah, I'm don't envy 19 year olds looking for software work right now. God help them.
  - cjohnson318 1y ago
    Well, I moved into a more conservative role, which I think was a good move considering the economy and the job market.
victorbjorklund 1y ago
Of course there will be. There will be instances where a company has 4 people working in a role but with AI 2 people can do the same job and they can therefore let 2 people go. (and then there will be other places where even more jobs are created because of AI).
- jalapenos 1y ago
  This is just an admission you don't know where work comes from. Like you think there's a fixed size of pie of work. If the company has a legal monopoly that prevents competition, sure. Otherwise, unless they're dumb and want to risk the other two leaving, they'll task all 4 of them to use the AI to accomplish things that were infeasible or uneconomical before, to try win market share or increase margins.
  - ulfw 1y ago
    You are assuming human resources are hired based on budget only instead of need. Your assumption is: "we have 400,000$ to spend on something. Oh okay let's spend them on hiring 4 engineers at 100k each" and with AI they just happen to be as efficient as 8 engineers. Yay. They'll just do more things. This might be the case at startups. For mid to larger size companies very often it is though: "we have X amount of work/projects/maintenance/support to do. How many people do we need and how much do we need to budget for that? Oh we need about 4? Will 400,000$ do? Okay let's go". In this case yes. If a $200/month AI subscription can bring those 4 people down to 3 or even 2 of course the company will lay off.
  - lovich 1y ago
    How do you square your comment with the fact that companies routinely engage in mass layoffs when they are profitable already?
    - csa 1y ago
      > How do you square your comment with the fact that companies routinely engage in mass layoffs when they are profitable already? Not op, but… Just because a company is profitable doesn’t mean that they make good decisions around hiring.
chinchilla2020 1y ago
helpdesk

giantg2 1y ago

Everywhere has a boom-bust cycle. The question is just on what timeline. It typically takes decades to happen. When is anyone's guess.

oceansky 1y ago
Not always. Some industries just never come back. Where is the oil lamp or camera film industry now?
- fiddlerwoaroof 1y ago
  I think defining industries this narrowly isn’t helpful
- platevoltage 1y ago
  The lamp industry didn't go anywhere. The Camera industry didn't go anywhere. Might as well be saying, where has the CRT monitor or Macromedia Flash industry now?

b3ing 1y ago

We are giving India the IT market, just like China got manufacturing.

mertleee 1y ago
It's precisely this. Trump is allowing one of the last vestiges of the American middle class to be outsourced to India. Just like Clinton allowed the same to happen with factory jobs to China. As a person of color this is even more detestable.
- ipnon 1y ago
  As a person of grayscale the contrast is undeniable.
  - the_third_wave 1y ago
    You Grayscale people have it easy, at least you have contrast. As a person of Transparency I end up overlooked everywhere all the time.
- platevoltage 1y ago
  At least we will be able to get jobs putting plastic forks in boxes now. Maybe we will be able to use those green GitHub tiles to negotiate better pay.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 1y ago
  [flagged]
- MangoCoffee 1y ago
  "No More Offshore. Startups Look to Spend and Hire in U.S. Due to Trump Tax Change." https://www.wsj.com/tech/tech-startups-hiring-us-workers-30f70207?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAjDWgoNcII2_AQilabzgWCa5KqkWx6A_GLDa3RsEYaSNGbtcsA7Tt1X&gaa_ts=689ff101&gaa_sig=OlDvonPp-TtrTejwuvXDdA7kEv-tclp61-D-XF2Llp5Vgjm3LB38Kx4HB_WK3uxYcGpejPrD8wfK3epbQLs-RA%3D%3D https://www.wsj.com/tech/tech-startups-hiring-us-workers-30f... I don't understand how Trump is allowing anything with headline like this.

dmonitor 1y ago

The rust belt can't really fall back on tourism like California can. Worst case scenario all software jobs evaporate and it becomes Florida with better weather

jurking_hoff 1y ago
[dead]
heavyset_go 1y ago
There are plenty of dying places in the desert and on the beach tourists can visit, it's just the "dying places" part that makes them aversive to tourism.
dangus 1y ago
LA has a highly diverse economy, it’s really only the Bay Area that has diversification issues. The rust belt actually does quite well with tourism, though my research for responding to your comment seems to indicate to me that tourism is important everywhere.
- aworks 1y ago
  Back in the 90s, it was the opposite as miliary/aerospace declined in SoCal. I'm a native Michigander and long-time Californian (both subject to booms/busts) who recently took a road trip to the Midwest and back. If it weren't for family and friends, I probably wouldn't venture east of the 100th parallel. I was surprised by this.
al_borland 1y ago
I’m over in the rust belt and all I hear about California these days is it’s full of homeless people and crime that goes unchecked. It’s not looking as appealing as a vacation destination as it did 20 years ago. Maybe this perception doesn’t match the reality you see living there, but when it comes to attracting tourists, perception is everything.
- justonceokay 1y ago

throw0101c 1y ago

> Why not the software too? Would it be any worse than the Dot-com bust? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

Buttons840 1y ago

> What if this turns into rust belt We're rewriting the belt.

geophph 1y ago
Ah ha!

flashgordon 1y ago

Haha so true. Though I feel for this to happen the cost of building software products has to be high. With manufacturing your average mechanical eng grad cannot build something and sell (factories' costs etc) out the gate. With software any body can build and put something out there (ignoring quality and tech debt and taste etc). Where software might go the way of manufacturing is when price of ai actually reflects hardware costs (my estimates of the realistic Claude max pricing at cost is between 7-10k and month). Now put together other structures that will come up to "industrialize" ai+software software may not have easy entries sadly.