In my experience, 100% of executives don’t actually know what their workforce does day-to-day, so it doesn’t really surprise me that they think they can lay people off because they started using ChatGPT to write their emails.
AI will reduce workforce, say 41% of execs in a survey
Submitted 7 months ago by boem@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/06/ai_will_reduce_workforce_41/
Comments
pjwestin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
ShepherdPie@midwest.social 7 months ago
This was my immediate thought too. Even people 2-3 levels of management above me struggle to understand our job let alone the person 5-6 levels up in the executive suite.
pjwestin@lemmy.world 7 months ago
At my last job my direct manager had to explain to upper management multiple times that X role and Y role could not be combined because it would require someone to physically be in multiple places simultaneously. I think about that a lot when I hear about these corporate plans to automate the workforce.
rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
However, people saying that C-suite can be replaced with GPTs don’t understand that plenty of people not in C-suite could be replaced or not replaced just as well. Lots of office plankton around with such reasoning skills that I just don’t know how their work can bring profit.
I can’t decide whether those people are really needed or they are employed so that they wouldn’t collectively lynch those of us who’d keep relevance, but wouldn’t be social enough to defend from that doom.
The problem with building hierarchies of humans is with humans politicking and lying and scheming with each other, not even talking about usual stuff like friendship and sympathy and their opposites. It’s just impossible to see what’s really happening behind all that.
catculation@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
unphazed@lemmy.world 7 months ago
The Oncology pharma companies would love that! Every time I google symptoms I swear…
xantoxis@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Well it’s good to know 59% of execs are aware that AI isn’t gonna change shit
kromem@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Some of that 59% might, but I guarantee at least some very strongly think it will change things, but think the change it brings will require as many people as before (if not more), but that they will be doing exponentially more with the people they have.
fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Could be they just think there is productivity shortfall and current workforce + plus AI will help meet it. Or just lieing for PR.
With out more data its just guessing though
Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
The problem with that headline is that it doesn’t feed the hype cycle.
jordanlund@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Can AI replace executives too?
mindlight@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Yes. And it will.
Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
As soon as we’ve managed to make a computer that can simulate an entire brain in real time. Who knows how many decades or even centuries will that take.
kromem@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Yes.
The biggest factor in terms of job satisfaction is your boss.
There’s a lot of bad bosses.
AI will be an above average boss before the decade is out.
DarkGamer@kbin.social 7 months ago
Nougat@fedia.io 7 months ago
Say execs. You know, the people who view labor as a cost center.
They say that because that’s what they want to happen, not because it’s a good idea.
DarkGamer@kbin.social 7 months ago
Freeing humans from toil is a good idea, just like the industrial revolution was. We just need our system to adapt and change with this new reality, with AGI and universal basic income we're could live in something like the society in start trek.
Nougat@fedia.io 7 months ago
I’m sure that’s what execs are talking about.
kromem@lemmy.world 7 months ago
And only 41%.
I’ve advised past clients to avoid reducing headcount and instead be looking at how they can scale up productivity.
It’s honestly pretty bizarre to me that so many people think this is going to result in the same amount of work with less people. Maybe in the short term a number of companies will go that way, but not long after they’ll be out of business.
Long term, the companies that are going to survive the coming tides of change are going to be the ones that aggressively do more and try to grow and expand what they do as much as possible.
Effective monopolies are going out the window, and the diminishing returns of large corporations are going to be going head to head with a legion of new entrants with orders of magnitude more efficiency and ambition.
This is definitely one of those periods in time where the focus on a quarterly return is going to turn out to be a cyanide pill.
Nougat@fedia.io 7 months ago
Short term is all that matters. Business fails? Start another one, and now you have a bunch of people that you made unemployed creating downward pressure on labor prices.
febra@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Can’t wait for AI to replace all those useless execs and CEOs
echodot@feddit.uk 7 months ago
If they could replace project managers that would be nice. In theory it is an important job, but in practice it’s just done by someone’s mate who was most productive when they don’t actually turn up.
ICastFist@programming.dev 7 months ago
The Paranoia RPG has a very realistic way of determining who gets to be the leader of a group. First, you pick who’ll do what kind of job (electronics, brute force, etc). Whoever didn’t get picked becomes the leader, as that person is too dumb to do anything useful.
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I have had good ones and not so good ones.
Wanderer@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I swear people don’t know the difference between a good project manager and a bad one, or no one.
Everyone on here is on about how the.board has no idea what the bottom rungs of the ladder do and are all “haha they are so stupid they think we do nothing”. Then in the next sentence say they don’t know what the board does and that they just do nothing.
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Don’t get a job in government contracting. Pretty much I do the work and around 5 people have suggestions. None of whom I can tell to fuck off directly.
Submit the drawing. Get asked to make a change to align with a spec. Point out that we took exception to the spec during bid. Get asked to make the change anyway. Make the change. Get asked to make another change by someone higher up the chain of five. Point out change will add delays and cost. Told to do it anyway. Make the next change…
Meanwhile every social scientist “we don’t know what is causing cost disease”
EndHD@lemm.ee 7 months ago
If Gartner comes out with a decent AI model, you could replace over half of your CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, etc. Most of them lack any real leadership qualities and simply parrot what they’re told/what they’ve read. They’re their through nepotism.
Also, most of them use AI as a crutch, so that’s all they know. Meanwhile, the rest of us use it as a tool (what it’s meant to be).
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Christ, if you think a CTO is hard to deal with, wait until you have to interface with the AI CTO.
Jayjader@jlai.lu 7 months ago
As long as i can prompt-engineer my way into twice the salary for half the hours, that might still be worth it!
aidan@lemmy.world 7 months ago
simply parrot what they’re told/what they’ve read.
That’s exactly what an LLM is
echodot@feddit.uk 7 months ago
But the AI can do it cheaper
MNByChoice@midwest.social 7 months ago
Yup. The owners can save a lot of money on those paychecks.
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
59% of execs are wrong.
melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I think that’s a little low.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 months ago
They’ll be replaced with AI
fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
41% execs think that a huge amount of class power will go from workers in general to AI specialists (and probally the companies they make or that hire them).
I personally can’t wait for a lot these businesses that bet on the wrong people to replace turn around and form new competition but with this new tech filling in the gaps of middle management, hr, execs, etc.
I mean its fucking meme, but an AI assisted workplace democracy seems alright to me on paper (the devils in details).
NocturnalEngineer@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Execs don’t give a shit. They simply double down on the false cause fallacy instead. A no long would they ever admit they fucked up.
The company I work last year went through a run of redundancies, claiming AI and system improvements were the cause. Before this point we were growing (slowly) year on year. Just not growing fast enough for the shareholders.
They cut too deep, shit is falling apart, and we’re loosing bids to competitors. Now they’ve doubled down on AI, claiming blindness to the systems issues they created, and just made an employee’s “Can Do” attitude a performance goal.
bane_killgrind@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Optimising for the oblivious or unscrupulous, nice.
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 7 months ago
You sound like you work from one of my part suppliers
Sanctus@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Lets try it. I am willing to start a worker coop headed by votes and an AI. Fuck it.
randon31415@lemmy.world 7 months ago
AI will (be a great excuse to) reduce workforce, say 41% of people who get bonuses if they do.
neo@feddit.de 7 months ago
Game’s changed. Now we fire people, try to rehire them for less money and if that doesn’t work we demand policy changes and less labour protection to counter the “labour shortage”.
rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
Labor shortage is such a funny term. It’s like coming to a store and looking for 1kg of meat for 1$, not finding it and saying there’s meat shortage. Or coming to a vegetarian store and looking for 1kg of any meat and saying the same.
When everybody is employed, but the economy needs more people - that’s labor shortage. When there are people looking for jobs, but not satisfied with particular offerings - that’s something else.
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
People here keep belittling AI. You’re all wrong, at least when considering the long run… We can’t beat it. We need to outlaw it.
Train it to replace CEO’s.
echodot@feddit.uk 7 months ago
It’s Schrödinger’s AI. It is both useless and will replace everyone. Depending on the agenda the particular person is trying to push.
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I know it’s getting boring. I am tried of people telling me how chatgpt and friends are toys that just spit back website data and in the same comment telling me how they are basically angry gods ready to end the human race.
Fucking make up your mind!
Blackmist@feddit.uk 7 months ago
“Smash the looms” is the wrong idea.
“Eat the rich” might have some merit though.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Yeah, don’t smash the looms, seize them. The ability to make labor easier and more efficient is a positive if we don’t allow it to be a means to impoverish the workers
Buttons@programming.dev 7 months ago
Outlawing it is a very dangerous path, because outlawing it completely will enable other countries to out compete us, and a outlawing it completely is right next to “outlaw it for normal people, allow companies to exploit it for profit” on the political dart board.
MajinBlayze@lemmy.world 7 months ago
If AI is outlawed, only outlaws will have AI
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Nah, I disagree on both counts.
We can’t beat it. We need to outlaw it.
Is the intent here to preserve jobs even if it’s less productive? That’s solving the wrong problem. Instead of banning it, we should be adapting to it. If AI is more efficient than people, the jobs people take should change.
I think there’s a solid case that if something would devolve into rent-seeking because competition is unproductive, it should be provided as a public service. Do you need a job if all of your basic needs are met by AI? At that point, any work you do would be optional, so people would follow their passions instead of working to make ends meet (see: Star Trek universe).
Think of it like Basic Income, but instead of cash, you’d get services at-cost. I think there’s room for non-profits (or maybe the government) to provide these AI-services at-cost.
Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Thankfully I don’t even wanna work. I just wanna live and if that’s not possible, exist.
b3an@lemmy.world 7 months ago
And that means lower prices for consumers. Right? Guys… r… right?
le_saucisson_masquay@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
There is no denial a.i. is going to replace or significantly reduce some jobs. But I predict it’s going to happen mostly in bullshit job like marketing, advertisement, the kind of journalism that repeat the same news from other reputed newspaper.
A.i. isn’t going to replace the migrants that lay bricks in front on me, it’s not going to replace their chief.
AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 7 months ago
It’ll reduce the workforce from well-remunerated professionals who perform tasks to a larger number of disposable minimum-wage labourers who clean up botshit.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
Biz leaders optimistic it can reduce living, breathing cost centers… er, valued workers
And aggregate demand needed to buy the shit they produce. But that’s not this corpo’s problem… until every corpo’s doing it.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 7 months ago
AI will remove 41% of execs, say 100% of people who know what AI is.
Honytawk@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
41% of execs maybe
Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 7 months ago
ITT: bunch of people who have no idea what AI even means
This is kind of like the early days of computers or internet all over again. LLMs is not what educated people mean when they’re talking about AI. ChatGPT is not going to take your jobs, AGI will.
SomeGuy69@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I never had the impression that there were enough people for the amount of work anyways. I don’t see jobs go, but shift. Most developers will be fine because of never ending work, AI is just a tool speeding things up. But not that much, as someone who is good with Google and git, is just a bit slower to find the same answers. And AI need verification too, even if it links you directly to the issue at hand.
AI will create new issues. Some of the low level requirement jobs will go, like working in first level support, but only if you learn the AI yourself, else it’s too generic. We’re not there yet, where companies learn their own LLM yet. some outlier try.
We got to understand that there’s still a human layer and a lot of people might prefer calling a human even if the result is worse, simply because we’re social beings. This can cost a lot of customers.
No one really knows how good AI will get. As the technology advanced, we find more and more hard to solve issues. Especially that AI will make things up or gives wrong answers despite knowing the real answer if you pressure hard enough.
Also for security reasons you can’t add AI everywhere, unless you want to send all secrets directly to Microsoft, Google or Facebook.
My 5 cents.
WallEx@feddit.de 7 months ago
This is why not every business is successful I guess
Daft_ish@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Lol, this is how you enshitify the workforce.
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 7 months ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A survey of senior biz executives reveals that 41 percent expect to have a smaller workforce in five years due to the implementation of AI technologies.
The research from staffing provider and recruitment agency Adecco Group found a “buy mindset” around AI, which “could exacerbate skills scarcity and create a two-speed workforce.”
The figure is highest in Germany and France, where 49 percent of respondents say their company will employ fewer people in five years because of AI.
Seventy-eight percent of respondents say GenAI will play a “critical role in providing upskilling and development opportunities.”
"While there is no denying that commercial interest in AI has been driven by its ability to reduce headcounts, the disruption will be a positive one – these industries have been suffering from decades-long skills crises, short on talent due to the high barriers to entry.
“Robotic engineers, data governors, drug discovery analysts – these are the jobs tomorrow that rely on AI,” she told us.
The original article contains 438 words, the summary contains 161 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Bye bye middle management!
But seriously, work will always expand to the available workforce. That’s why there are so many stupid industries. They always tank during a resession, but other industries will expand to use excess labor.
ICastFist@programming.dev 7 months ago
If it isn’t yet, AI will be calling the shots on the actual money owners (those big investment companies like Blackrock). Invest here, invest there, demand more from elsewhere. Said AI will then dictate who should be appointed CEO, director, etc, because it will be asked to name “a human” and little Timmy McMeritocracy, son of a high up elsewhere, needs his first job, nevermind that putting an AI in his place would be more profitable.
menemen@lemmy.world 7 months ago
And as a result the remaining workforce will have to work more.
GiddyGap@lemm.ee 7 months ago
So, when am I gonna see some of all that UBI?
N_Crow@leminal.space 7 months ago
Can’t wait for the 94% unemployed to raid the banks and eat the Bankers.
MapleEngineer@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Who do these assholes think will buy their products and services when they put the entire workforce out of work? Do they plan to retreat to their bunkers and live out their days underground while the world burns above?
n3cr0@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I predict a huge demand of workforce in five years, when they finally realized AI doesn’t drive innovation, but recycles old ideas over and over.
chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 7 months ago
“Workforce” doesn’t produce innovation, either. It does the labor. AI is great at doing the labor. It excels in mindless, repetitive tasks. AI won’t be replacing the innovators, it will be replacing the desk jockeys that do nothing but update spreadsheets or write code. What I predict we’ll see is the floor dropping out of technical schools that teach the things that AI will be replacing. We are looking at the last generation of code monkeys. People joke about how bad AI is at writing code, but give it the same length of time as a graduate program and see where it is. Hell, ChatGPT has only been around since June of 2020 and that was the beta (just 13 years after the first iPhone, and look how far smartphones have come). There won’t be a huge demand for workforce in 5 years, there will be a huge portion of the population that suddenly won’t have a job. It won’t be like the agricultural or industrial revolution where it takes time to make it’s way around the world, or where this is some demand for artisanal goods. No one wants artisanal spreadsheets, and we are too global now to not outsource our work to the lowest bidder with the highest thread count. It will happen nearly overnight, and if the world’s governments aren’t prepared, we’ll see an unemployment crisis like never before. We’re still in “Fuck around.” “Find out” is just around the corner, though.
ozmot@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Even mindless and repetitive tasks require instances of problem solving far beyond what a.i is capable of. In order to replace 41% of the work force you’ll need a.g.i and we don’t know if thats even possible.
jaybone@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’ve worked with humans, who have computer science degrees and 20 years of experience, and some of them have trouble writing good code and debugging issues, communicating properly, integrating with other teams / components.
I don’t see “AI” doing this. At least not these LLM models everyone is calling AI today.
Once we get to Data from Star Trek levels, then I can see it. But this is not that. This is not even close to that.
Wooki@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Hype hype hype hype hype.
rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
You know what I like about Pareto law and all the “divide and conquer” algorithms? You should still know where the division is and which 10% are more important than the other 90%.
Anyway, my job is in learning new stuff quickly and fixing that. Like of many-many people, even some non-technical types really.
People who can be replaced with machines have already been for the most part, and where they can’t, it’s also a matter of social pressure. Mercantilism and protectionism and guilds historically were defending the interests of certain parties, with force too.
No, I don’t think there’ll be a sudden “find out” different from any other period of history.
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Hahahaha, good one
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
I disagree.
As someone who has the first iPhone, it was amazing and basically did everything that a new one does. It went on all websites, had banking apps and everything.
I would actually argue phones have become worse, they are very bloated and spy on you, at first they actually made your life better and there was no social media apps super charged for addiction.
PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
I predict execs will never see this despite you being correct. We replaced most of our HR department with enterprise GPT-4 and now almost all HR inquiries where I work is handled through a bot. It daydreams HR policies and sometimes deletes your PTO days.
Khanzarate@lemmy.world 7 months ago
But can you convince it to report itself for its violations if you phrase it like it’s a person?
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I give you permission to replace HR with chatgpt. It just can’t be any worse.
metaStatic@kbin.social 7 months ago
these are the same people who continue to use monetary incentives despite hard scientific evidence that it has the opposite effect from what is desired. they're not gonna realise shit.
SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 7 months ago
The ones refusing to give raises and also being shocked and compassion bitterly about loyalty when people quit for a higher wage somewhere else.
Pacmanlives@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Seems to be working in Hollywood films for the last 20 years
assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Yeah the 59% in this survey are going to end up pretty successful and buy out the 41%
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I am so glad us humans don’t do that. It’s so nice going to a movie theater and seeing a truly original plot.