AI is undermining entry-level jobs

[Beebo Brink]

There are dozens of articles about this topic, so for the purposes of discussion I pulled out this one:
AI is erasing the entry-level jobs new grads once relied on

The immediate impact gets the most attention -- fewer jobs for new grads -- but I've not seen as much attention to the long-term impact: Entry-level jobs are how young tech employees learn and eventually become senior tech employees. At an individual level, companies don't see that as their problem. Perhaps they also assume that by the time all their senior tech people retire, AI will be advanced enough to step into the breach.

Well, good luck with that. There are rumblings that AI is reaching its limit, only adding incremental improvements (if not actually backsliding) with every new iteration. If that is indeed the case (and I believe it is), then we've knocked the legs out of the tech career ladder just as we start hemorrhaging senior developers.

 

[Khamon]

AI will make software disposable. Need a new feature, just have the AI construct another entire system, import the data, and scrap the old one. It's all virtual, the AI doesn't even have to care what languages, libraries, hardware, et al are being used. Damn security and damn anyone who pokes their human nose into the process.

It's the same problem that higher level languages and plug-and-play caused in understanding and repair. For example, a director's PC was being flaky last week, the troubleshooting sessions were fruitless so it was slated to be replaced. The director called me, described the symptoms, and asked if her machine really had to be replaced. The RAM was failing. A first year would've known that from the description twenty thirty years ago. I put a new stick in the device (remember when we have to install chips all from the same sleeve) and it is good as new. But that's my generation's understanding of hardware from the ground up. Young IT don't see the hardware, it's virtual, and they don't see much of the software, certainly not the dependencies.

END OF LINE

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

There are dozens of articles about this topic, so for the purposes of discussion I pulled out this one:
AI is erasing the entry-level jobs new grads once relied on

The immediate impact gets the most attention -- fewer jobs for new grads -- but I've not seen as much attention to the long-term impact: Entry-level jobs are how young tech employees learn and eventually become senior tech employees. At an individual level, companies don't see that as their problem. Perhaps they also assume that by the time all their senior tech people retire, AI will be advanced enough to step into the breach.

Well, good luck with that. There are rumblings that AI is reaching its limit, only adding incremental improvements (if not actually backsliding) with every new iteration. If that is indeed the case (and I believe it is), then we've knocked the legs out of the tech career ladder just as we start hemorrhaging senior developers.

Ah yes, I remember reading this story, not AI but some other automation, in 1995 while trying to enter career.

I went back to school for accountancy.

 

[Free]

Amazon Preps Employees for Layoffs by Talking Up the Power of AI Agents

Start polishing that resume.

gizmodo.com

Amazon appears to be soft-launching its next round of layoffs. In a message to employees shared Tuesday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy talked highly of the company’s embrace of artificial intelligence tools across its company, and said that it will ultimately “reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains” over time. That is only slightly veiled corporate speak for “get ready to be replaced.”

Jassy called generative AI a “once-in-a-lifetime” technology that will change the way the company operates, and said Amazon is already using it in “virtually every corner of the company.” According to Jassy, Amazon already has over 1,000 Generative AI services and applications in progress or built, and said, “that’s a small fraction of what we will ultimately build.” So it’s clear the company is all in on AI. Amazon previously said it would commit $100 billion to investing in AI technologies this year.

As for humans? Well, it seems Amazon is not so committed to them long-term. Jassy told the company’s 1.5 million employees that generative AI will “change the way our work is done,” and said that the company will ultimately “need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.”

 

[Isabeau]

“But thanks for sending me into space, suckers!“

 

[Noodles]

WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BUY ALL THE SHIT FROM THESE COMPANIES IF NO ONE HAS JOBS AND WE ARE NOT MAKING UBI?

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Amazon Preps Employees for Layoffs by Talking Up the Power of AI Agents

Start polishing that resume.

gizmodo.com

I feel bad for the employees and of course Amazon is about to become impossible to talk to just like Meta already is.

WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BUY ALL THE SHIT FROM THESE COMPANIES IF NO ONE HAS JOBS AND WE ARE NOT MAKING UBI?

UBI will eventually become a total necessity. Even some people who admit this think it's a long way off, but I think we will gradually reach that necessity rather than a sudden clear event. We are partly already there of course.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

God I hope that people aren't actually putting this shit code into actual production.

 

[Casey Pelous]

God I hope that people aren't actually putting this shit code into actual production.

In the immortal words of the great philosopher Larry the Cable Guy, "Now, that's funny, right there, I don't care who ya are."

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

UBI will eventually become a total necessity. Even some people who admit this think it's a long way off, but I think we will gradually reach that necessity rather than a sudden clear event. We are partly already there of course.

Might be better for shareholder value to mount guns on robots and just mow anyone down who has negative equity then upload their brains into other slave robots to work off their debts.

Why yes I snort way too much cyberpunk. It’s the most reliable sci fi there is. Why do you ask?

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Might be better for shareholder value to mount guns on robots and just mow anyone down who has negative equity then upload their brains into other slave robots to work off their debts.

Why yes I snort way too much cyberpunk. It’s the most reliable sci fi there is. Why do you ask?

You're being tongue and cheek but I really do believe that there will come a day where this will all come to a head. We'll have the option of giving generous UBI or having mob riots of people with nothing to lose. Plenty of people know this is coming, but a lot of powerful people are in denial or don't give a shit.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

You're being tongue and cheek

In a world where the Onion and the Beaverton are news before it's news I'm not so sure about that anymore.

 

[Free]

Companies That Replaced Humans With AI Are Realizing Their Mistake

As AI agents have yet to pay for themselves, more and more executives are waking up to the sloppy reality of AI hype.

futurism.com

I feel such empathy for these companies...

 

[Noodles]

God I hope that people aren't actually putting this shit code into actual production.

You know they are.

Maybe it's different when you are a giant company with a paid plan, but man, coding with these tools is both easy and rough, even when you know what you are doing.

I was making a script the other day with Claud and it would work, then I would ask for a new feature added, then it would just... Randomly remove a previously there function.

I could see it was gone and cut and pasted it from a previous iteration but like, WTF bot, why remove it.

 

[Noodles]

Companies That Replaced Humans With AI Are Realizing Their Mistake

As AI agents have yet to pay for themselves, more and more executives are waking up to the sloppy reality of AI hype.

futurism.com

I feel such empathy for these companies...

The real problem with Ai "support" I imagine, they just, train it on an already useless FAQ page. The reason you get a person who can actually think, is they can see the hole and the problem. AI will just keep telling you to reset your password as stated in the FAQ page (etc).

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I could see it was gone and cut and pasted it from a previous iteration but like, WTF bot, why remove it.

Because there's no entity with any agency that actually "knows" anything, it's just generating text that looks like what humans have written in the past. There's no "why".

 

[Free]

Forget entry-level. Put AI in management!

Anthropic Let an AI Agent Run a Small Shop and the Result Was Unintentionally Hilarious

Anthropic let its Claude chatbot run a tiny, automated "shop" inside its San headquarters — and the results were nothing short of hilarious.

futurism.com