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I’m suss about this paper when it makes this claim: “where AI is more likely to automate, rather than augment , human labor.” Where is AI currently automating

I’m suss about this paper when it makes this claim: “where AI is more likely to automate, rather than augment , human labor.” Where is AI currently automating human labor? Not Software Engineering. Or - what’s the difference between AI that augments me so I can do the job of three people and AI that “automates human labor”

lotsofpulp 1y ago
What is the effective difference between augment and automate? Either way, fewer man hours are needed to produce the same output.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > What is the effective difference between augment and automate? If the field has a future.
- stonemetal12 1y ago
  If your job is to swing a hammer, then hammer swinging robot automates your job. If your job is to swing a hammer, then drill robot augments your job (your job is now swing hammer and drill hole). How that is different from drill bot automating human driller's job is an exercise left to the reader.
- HPsquared 1y ago
  The total output isn't going to stay the same, though.
- marcosdumay 1y ago
  > What is the effective difference between augment and automate? The paper says one of those is impacted, and the other isn't. So, yeah, not only that's what the GP is asking, but I'd like to know it too.
WillPostForFood 1y ago
When the Stanford paper looked at augment vs automate, they used the data from Anthropic's AI Economic Index. That paper defined the terms like this: We also analyze how AI is being used for tasks, finding 57% of usage suggests augmentation of human capabilities (e.g., learning or iterating on an output) while 43% suggests automation (e.g., fulfilling a request with minimal human involvement). From the data, software engineers are automating their own work, not augmenting. Anthropic's full paper is here: https://arxiv.org/html/2503.04761v1 https://arxiv.org/html/2503.04761v1
- techpineapple 1y ago
  Sounds like a snake eating it's own tail.
tart-lemonade 1y ago
I was also curious about this. Table A1 on page 56 lists examples of positions that are automated vs augmented, and these are the positions the authors think are going to be most augmented (allegedly taken from [0]): - Chief Executives - Maintenance and Repair Workers, General - Registered Nurses - Computer and Information Systems Managers After skimming [0], I can't seem to find a listing of jobs that would be augmented vs automated, just a breakdown of the % of analyzed queries that were augmenting vs automating, so I'm a bit confused where this is coming from. [0]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.04761 https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.04761

lotsofpulp 1y ago

What is the effective difference between augment and automate? Either way, fewer man hours are needed to produce the same output.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> What is the effective difference between augment and automate? If the field has a future.
stonemetal12 1y ago
If your job is to swing a hammer, then hammer swinging robot automates your job. If your job is to swing a hammer, then drill robot augments your job (your job is now swing hammer and drill hole). How that is different from drill bot automating human driller's job is an exercise left to the reader.
HPsquared 1y ago
The total output isn't going to stay the same, though.
marcosdumay 1y ago
> What is the effective difference between augment and automate? The paper says one of those is impacted, and the other isn't. So, yeah, not only that's what the GP is asking, but I'd like to know it too.

WillPostForFood 1y ago

When the Stanford paper looked at augment vs automate, they used the data from Anthropic's AI Economic Index. That paper defined the terms like this: We also analyze how AI is being used for tasks, finding 57% of usage suggests augmentation of human capabilities (e.g., learning or iterating on an output) while 43% suggests automation (e.g., fulfilling a request with minimal human involvement). From the data, software engineers are automating their own work, not augmenting. Anthropic's full paper is here: https://arxiv.org/html/2503.04761v1 https://arxiv.org/html/2503.04761v1

techpineapple 1y ago
Sounds like a snake eating it's own tail.

tart-lemonade 1y ago

I was also curious about this. Table A1 on page 56 lists examples of positions that are automated vs augmented, and these are the positions the authors think are going to be most augmented (allegedly taken from [0]): - Chief Executives - Maintenance and Repair Workers, General - Registered Nurses - Computer and Information Systems Managers After skimming [0], I can't seem to find a listing of jobs that would be augmented vs automated, just a breakdown of the % of analyzed queries that were augmenting vs automating, so I'm a bit confused where this is coming from. [0]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.04761 https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.04761