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> What matters in the end is that this tech is not to empower a common person (although it could). How do you figure? 20 dollars/month is insanely cheap for wh

by slibhb 8mo ago

> What matters in the end is that this tech is not to empower a common person (although it could). How do you figure? 20 dollars/month is insanely cheap for what OpenAI/Anthropic/Google offer. That absolutely qualifies as "empowering a common person". It lowers barriers! A lot of the anti-AI sentiment on HN concerns people losing their jobs. I don't think this will happen: programmers who know what they're doing are going to be way, way more effective at using AIs to generate code than others. But even if it is true and we do see job losses in tech: are software devs really "in a precarious position"? Do they really qualify as "those that have little"? Seems like a fantasy to me. Computer programmers have done great over the past 30 years. More broadly, anti-AI sentiment comes from people who dislike change. It's hard to argue someone out of that position. You're allowed to prefer stasis. But the world moves on and I think it's best to remain optimistic, keep an open mind, and make the most of it.

vips7L 8mo ago
> I don't think this will happen Block just laid off 40% of their company citing AI.
- CPLX 8mo ago
  > Block just laid off 40% of their company Because the company was being horribly run and over hired and "pivoted to blockchain" for no fucking reason. > citing AI. Because it's 2026 and they thought that would work to bullshit a few people about point one, which apparently it did.
- slibhb 8mo ago
  Tech companies have been laying off employees for a while now. I think it's mostly due to pandemic overhiring and higher interest rates but I suppose we'll see.
  - vips7L 8mo ago
    I agree that AI was not the _actual_ reason, however, it did allow them to do massive layoffs without admitting they are doing poorly and not taking a massive hit to their stock price.
  - miyoji 8mo ago
    > I think it's mostly due to pandemic overhiring and higher interest rates It's not because of pandemic overhiring, and if that were true, the layoffs in 2021-2022 would have handled it. It's 2026. The people getting laid off (on average) haven't worked at these companies since before the pandemic, they got hired in ~2023 (average tenure at a tech company is ~3 years). It's not because of AI either. Nobody is replacing jobs with AI, AI can't do anyone's job. It's not because of interest rates. People hired like crazy when interest rates were this high in the oughts. It's because Elon Musk's Twitter purchase and subsequent management convinced every executive in tech that you can cut to the bone, fuck your product's quality completely, and be totally fine. It's not true, but the downsides come later and the cash influx comes now, so they're doing it anyway.
    - glitch13 8mo ago
      > It's because Elon Musk's Twitter purchase and subsequent management convinced every executive in tech that you can cut to the bone, fuck your product's quality completely, and be totally fine. I agreed with you up to this point. Twitter largely operated in the red for its entire existence prior to his "restructuring" to make it leaner and profitable. In my opinion, twitter went to shit when the incentive for creating engagement switched from gaining social capital to gaining... erm... actual capital. The laissez-faire attitude about allowing fairly terrible behavior on there gave it a PR black eye that probably didn't help either in the eyes of advertisers. If I had to guess what happened with Block (and that's what we're all doing, guessing): a CEO's job is to make the line go up, and saying you introduced tools to increase productivity with half the staff (especially if you're overstaffed) seems to me a pretty easy way to do that. I saw someone on here refer to it as "Vibe CEOing", which I think is pretty on point. Again, just my opinion/guess.
  - FuckButtons 8mo ago
    junior dev hiring is down 60%, that’s not just a post pandemic correction.
- Lumping6371 8mo ago
  "Juan said his dad works at Nintendo"
bunderbunder 8mo ago
It's also, for example, the studies finding that when companies adopt AI employees' jobs get worse. More multitasking, more overtime, more burnout, more skills you're expected to learn (on your own time if necessary), more interpersonal conflict among colleagues. And this is not being offset by anything tangible like an increase in pay. $20/month in return for measurable reductions in quality of life is not an amazing deal. It's "Heads I win, tails you lose." Or maybe, if you're thinking of it as an enabler for a side hustle or some other project with a low probability of a high payoff, it can slightly more optimistically be regarded as a moderately expensive lottery ticket. That's not pessimism; it's just a realistic understanding of how the tech industry actually works, informed by decades' worth of experience.
- slibhb 8mo ago
  > It's also, for example, the studies finding that when companies adopt AI employees' jobs get worse. More multitasking, more overtime, more burnout, more skills you're expected to learn (on your own time if necessary), more interpersonal conflict among colleagues. And this is not being offset by anything tangible like an increase in pay. Can you share those studies? I'm pretty skeptical of this effect. I find that AI has made my job easier and less stressful. In general, I think your atittude is not realistic, it's just general pessimism about the world ("everything new is bad") that is basically unfounded.
  - bunderbunder 8mo ago
    https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies...
    - henryaj 8mo ago
      Paywalled, and HBR articles are famously not a good source
- pigpop 8mo ago
  >More multitasking, more overtime, more burnout, more skills you're expected to learn (on your own time if necessary), more interpersonal conflict among colleagues. And this is not being offset by anything tangible like an increase in pay. Similar things happened with the adoption of computers in the workplace. Perhaps there's a case for banning all digital technology and hiring typists and other assistants to perform the work using typewriters and mechanical calculators? There would certainly be less multitasking when you have 8 hours worth of documents to retype and file/mail. Perhaps there would be less overtime when your boss can see you have a high workload by the state of papers piled upon your desk. Or maybe we can solve these problems in a different way.
ezst 8mo ago
> How do you figure? 20 dollars/month is insanely cheap for what OpenAI/Anthropic/Google offer. That absolutely qualifies as "empowering a common person". This must be sarcasm. This has to be.

by slibhb 8mo ago

vips7L 8mo ago

> I don't think this will happen Block just laid off 40% of their company citing AI.

CPLX 8mo ago
> Block just laid off 40% of their company Because the company was being horribly run and over hired and "pivoted to blockchain" for no fucking reason. > citing AI. Because it's 2026 and they thought that would work to bullshit a few people about point one, which apparently it did.
slibhb 8mo ago
Tech companies have been laying off employees for a while now. I think it's mostly due to pandemic overhiring and higher interest rates but I suppose we'll see.
- vips7L 8mo ago
  I agree that AI was not the _actual_ reason, however, it did allow them to do massive layoffs without admitting they are doing poorly and not taking a massive hit to their stock price.
- miyoji 8mo ago
  > I think it's mostly due to pandemic overhiring and higher interest rates It's not because of pandemic overhiring, and if that were true, the layoffs in 2021-2022 would have handled it. It's 2026. The people getting laid off (on average) haven't worked at these companies since before the pandemic, they got hired in ~2023 (average tenure at a tech company is ~3 years). It's not because of AI either. Nobody is replacing jobs with AI, AI can't do anyone's job. It's not because of interest rates. People hired like crazy when interest rates were this high in the oughts. It's because Elon Musk's Twitter purchase and subsequent management convinced every executive in tech that you can cut to the bone, fuck your product's quality completely, and be totally fine. It's not true, but the downsides come later and the cash influx comes now, so they're doing it anyway.
  - glitch13 8mo ago
    > It's because Elon Musk's Twitter purchase and subsequent management convinced every executive in tech that you can cut to the bone, fuck your product's quality completely, and be totally fine. I agreed with you up to this point. Twitter largely operated in the red for its entire existence prior to his "restructuring" to make it leaner and profitable. In my opinion, twitter went to shit when the incentive for creating engagement switched from gaining social capital to gaining... erm... actual capital. The laissez-faire attitude about allowing fairly terrible behavior on there gave it a PR black eye that probably didn't help either in the eyes of advertisers. If I had to guess what happened with Block (and that's what we're all doing, guessing): a CEO's job is to make the line go up, and saying you introduced tools to increase productivity with half the staff (especially if you're overstaffed) seems to me a pretty easy way to do that. I saw someone on here refer to it as "Vibe CEOing", which I think is pretty on point. Again, just my opinion/guess.
- FuckButtons 8mo ago
  junior dev hiring is down 60%, that’s not just a post pandemic correction.
Lumping6371 8mo ago
"Juan said his dad works at Nintendo"

bunderbunder 8mo ago

It's also, for example, the studies finding that when companies adopt AI employees' jobs get worse. More multitasking, more overtime, more burnout, more skills you're expected to learn (on your own time if necessary), more interpersonal conflict among colleagues. And this is not being offset by anything tangible like an increase in pay. $20/month in return for measurable reductions in quality of life is not an amazing deal. It's "Heads I win, tails you lose." Or maybe, if you're thinking of it as an enabler for a side hustle or some other project with a low probability of a high payoff, it can slightly more optimistically be regarded as a moderately expensive lottery ticket. That's not pessimism; it's just a realistic understanding of how the tech industry actually works, informed by decades' worth of experience.

slibhb 8mo ago
> It's also, for example, the studies finding that when companies adopt AI employees' jobs get worse. More multitasking, more overtime, more burnout, more skills you're expected to learn (on your own time if necessary), more interpersonal conflict among colleagues. And this is not being offset by anything tangible like an increase in pay. Can you share those studies? I'm pretty skeptical of this effect. I find that AI has made my job easier and less stressful. In general, I think your atittude is not realistic, it's just general pessimism about the world ("everything new is bad") that is basically unfounded.
- bunderbunder 8mo ago
  https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies...
  - henryaj 8mo ago
    Paywalled, and HBR articles are famously not a good source
pigpop 8mo ago
>More multitasking, more overtime, more burnout, more skills you're expected to learn (on your own time if necessary), more interpersonal conflict among colleagues. And this is not being offset by anything tangible like an increase in pay. Similar things happened with the adoption of computers in the workplace. Perhaps there's a case for banning all digital technology and hiring typists and other assistants to perform the work using typewriters and mechanical calculators? There would certainly be less multitasking when you have 8 hours worth of documents to retype and file/mail. Perhaps there would be less overtime when your boss can see you have a high workload by the state of papers piled upon your desk. Or maybe we can solve these problems in a different way.

ezst 8mo ago

> How do you figure? 20 dollars/month is insanely cheap for what OpenAI/Anthropic/Google offer. That absolutely qualifies as "empowering a common person". This must be sarcasm. This has to be.