- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
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What the fuck are they on?! Have you tried applying somewhere, only to get a rejection email before you close the tab? AI has been affecting jobs for years, get your head out your ass…
They are using it as their current excuse for outsourcing.
It’s not AI doing that.
Not to worry! When the AI bubble bursts and drags down the US stock market with it, it’ll have an impact on jobs all right.
And my investment bank doesn’t let me short on it.
For some odd reason.
the ethics committee has investigated the ethics committee and has found it free of ethics!
Hmm I actually recall multiple high profile rounds of layoffs citing AI as the primary reason behind them. I guess they must have misspoken.
because hidding failing financial by pretending you are becoming more efficient is good if you have the foresight of a CEO (about 4 months total)
Saying out loud you are laying people off to meet a bonus quota is not good
I used to get a lot more freelance writing and design gigs before AI. It was great under the table money because, at times, I recieve partial support for my disability, and they deduct from my monthly funds if I make money. It’s not enough to live on to begin with, so I relied on side gigs for any savings at all.
Now? I get none. Former clients have outright told me it’s just cheaper to use AI or Canva or whatever. I have friends with similar stories, so I wonder just how much of the unseen labor market was affected by this.
I don’t blame AI. It’s a neat technology and there’s nothing inherently wrong with. I blame capitalism for stealing from artists, building unsustainably, and for creating a world where people have to worry about lost funds from designing bullshit web graphics and business cards instead of having the time, money and bandwidth to follow our passions.
The Budget Lab is funded by Arnold Ventures, the California Community Foundation, Ford Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, NEO Philanthropy, Peter G. Peterson Foundation, and Yagan Family Foundation.
Juat FYI: Almost all these sources of funding for the lab this report is coming from have some kind of stake in AI themselves.
Yeah that headline seems like capitalists trying to calm down the masses.
Oh, I didn’t realize Yale was this sloppy with their studies. I’ve seen over half a dozen people fired and replaced with AI.
More like they have been fired because of the AI hype and are expected to be replaced by AI. In reality however, another worker just has to work harder and use an AI agent to do less valuable work overall. A drop in quality will mean a drop in sales and they‘ll wish they didn‘t fire all those valuable workers who won‘t return for the same pay they had before.
The Yale researchers’ nothingburger result has precedent. In 2023, a study by the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) concluded that generative AI would probably not replace most workers.
A study of Danish workers published in April determined that generative AI had no material impact on wages or jobs. Another such study published in February found “overall employment effects are modest, as reduced demand in exposed occupations is offset by productivity-driven increases in labor demand at AI-adopting firms.”
There is some contradictory data.
No shit.
Looks like Stanford disagrees, 13% of entry level work has been replaced by AI.
https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Canaries_BrynjolfssonChandarChen.pdf
So, reading that study, I have a few concerns about how it was conducted and my concerns generally aligns with their findings. Primarily, their source for information is the payroll system of the companies studied, which in my experience is nothing more than an HR drone entering into the system what they’re told to enter. If the prescribed reason is AI even when it was really business performance, then that kind of aligns with the study in the OP.
Their graphs of roles most and least exposed to AI disruption is dandy, but if you think about it (with the exception of customer service roles) the jobs that are threatened are typically not production roles for the company, and are moreso ancillary positions for most companies. I’m a software engineer for a company that doesn’t sell software, which means I’m more of a luxury than a necessity; this is true for the majority of software engineers.
The roles least exposed to AI, according to the study, are production roles that play a core role in the product delivery of the company. Things like construction workers, nurses, cooks, etc. are only in businesses where they are the core of the business model. I’ve never seen a movie theater chain employ nurses or cooks in droves, but they have employed secret shoppers (auditors), accountants, software engineers, etc. and are likely to trim that fat when times get tough. I think this is more of an economic health indicator than anything, IMO.
Just bring on the leisure society with UBI. We’re awash in renewable energy, right? Why does everyone need to work, especially the meaningless kabuki theater of modern office work?
Wish my grandfather hadn’t left x.x
If both grandparents were born there you have rights of descent and are an Irish citizen.
Just have to do the paperwork.
This is because the real economy is going into recession and all the job cuts are actually because of that. AI is a big facade to try to conceal this.
It’s easy right now for companies to pretend layoffs are caused by the shit economy or tariffs.
Doubt
Yeah, that tracks with what I see, at least. Either it’s used as an excuse for layoffs that likely would happen anyway given the market, or they’re just included in a workflow without firing (the US was already in bad shape after COVID, with tech companies already laying off people they over-hired during lockdown)
I’ve got a friend who pays under the table to a guy to write and edit instructional videos, and still does that since there’s never enough videos to produce for her project. Just, now, the guy uses AI in his workflow and… I’d say maybe produces at about the same pace (fact checking the AI takes time, lol).
But basically, AI didn’t replace her copy writer / editor, they just scaled up (or at least, attempted to, lol).
I think ai was not just an excuse and that they layed off thinking they could somehow make it up with ai.
Right after COVID, they used largely unnecessary back-to-work orders to trim the workforce. That was nice for them, as they don’t pay severance if you quit over back-to-work.
Now that is exhausted, they can still use AI as cover for hiring less and laying off workforce to avoid spooking investors into realizing they are contracting.
Also remember that tech companies tend to be evaluated based on insane growth predictions, so anything less than that can spook investors and crash their stock price. They are desperate for cover. Same reason they make lots of fake job postings they will never actually hire for. It’s all a shell game for the stock price.
Tell that to Klarna…
