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Most of the alarmist writing I see about AI displacing workers or suddenly and drastically changing the economy seem to be written by people who are pretty remo

by nateb2022 17d ago

Most of the alarmist writing I see about AI displacing workers or suddenly and drastically changing the economy seem to be written by people who are pretty removed from technology or the actual businesses in which AI is allegedly replacing people. Their theses on AI are not as much a criticism of AI as much as a desire to frame capitalism itself within their own system of ethics and advocate for some form of reform; which is to say I feel that were AI as we know it to be inexistent, they would still find themselves arguing against technology in general, or more precisely against efficiency, with a presupposed socialist-adjacent premise that capitalism only incentivizes greed.

watwut 17d ago
Most of the alarmist writing I see about AI displacing workers or suddenly and drastically changing the economy ... are from pro-ai boosters trying to create hype around AI. They are not criticism of ai, they are openly stated goals and aspirations.
- nateb2022 17d ago
  There's a lot of that type of slop on LinkedIn (with accompanying slop comments) but they're not taken anywhere as seriously as the more thoughtful blog posts like this Also in technical circles, we're pretty aware of the marketing/self-promotional nuance of the "our AI accidentally hacked X company" type of press releases, which perhaps the general public may not take with as large a grain of salt
  - watwut 17d ago
    I dont read linkedin. I was not referencing linkedin. Among other sources, the primary one is literally AI companies themselves. And people close to them. The "it will replace workers" is pro-ai talking and selling point.
    - nateb2022 17d ago
      I agree there, I think if we differentiate between first and second order AI companies (companies producing models vs applying those models to everyday tasks) I do think a lot of the hype comes from the 2nd order companies, since they necessarily must make a bold claim to be worthy of VC money. A lot of the 1st order companies are marketing their AI to consumers who are doing work, rather than looking to market their AI to business who are replacing those consumers. If anyone has the means to replace a worker, it's definitely OpenAI or Anthropic moreso than a 2nd order startup trying to replace the human doing the job. And on a restrospective point, I think one of the easiest jobs for AI to do right now is software engineering. But on the whole, while there certainly have been layoffs, software engineering hiring has still been mostly a net positive[0]. And that's just for formal software engineering jobs; if we define a software engineer as a human creating software, then I think AI as a tool has created a LOT more (perhaps not employed as one, but say, a realtor creating their own sofware for personal use) software engineers than the amount that it's actually replaced. In a sense, because of AI, there are more software engineers now than ever before. [0]: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/state-of-the-job-market-2026 https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/state-of-the-job-...
- whstl 17d ago
  About pro-AI boosters: One of the people in the company I work for/with is a non-programmer that has a “vibe coding consulting” gig on the side. Basically half of their Linkedin is about how they’re shipping features at half the speed as developers, with quality, etc. They’re not. They took about three months to prototype something that was rejected for not working/unreadable code. Another team built the same feature from scratch in a week. Seeing the other side of the grift is kind of pathetic.
  - 3ddds 17d ago
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    - whstl 17d ago
      I agree. It requires good judgement, domain knowledge, good work ethic. Grifters who think the LLM can do it all for them will definitely not survive in a competitive market.
3ddds 17d ago
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watwut 17d ago

Most of the alarmist writing I see about AI displacing workers or suddenly and drastically changing the economy ... are from pro-ai boosters trying to create hype around AI. They are not criticism of ai, they are openly stated goals and aspirations.

nateb2022 17d ago
There's a lot of that type of slop on LinkedIn (with accompanying slop comments) but they're not taken anywhere as seriously as the more thoughtful blog posts like this Also in technical circles, we're pretty aware of the marketing/self-promotional nuance of the "our AI accidentally hacked X company" type of press releases, which perhaps the general public may not take with as large a grain of salt
- watwut 17d ago
  I dont read linkedin. I was not referencing linkedin. Among other sources, the primary one is literally AI companies themselves. And people close to them. The "it will replace workers" is pro-ai talking and selling point.
  - nateb2022 17d ago
    I agree there, I think if we differentiate between first and second order AI companies (companies producing models vs applying those models to everyday tasks) I do think a lot of the hype comes from the 2nd order companies, since they necessarily must make a bold claim to be worthy of VC money. A lot of the 1st order companies are marketing their AI to consumers who are doing work, rather than looking to market their AI to business who are replacing those consumers. If anyone has the means to replace a worker, it's definitely OpenAI or Anthropic moreso than a 2nd order startup trying to replace the human doing the job. And on a restrospective point, I think one of the easiest jobs for AI to do right now is software engineering. But on the whole, while there certainly have been layoffs, software engineering hiring has still been mostly a net positive[0]. And that's just for formal software engineering jobs; if we define a software engineer as a human creating software, then I think AI as a tool has created a LOT more (perhaps not employed as one, but say, a realtor creating their own sofware for personal use) software engineers than the amount that it's actually replaced. In a sense, because of AI, there are more software engineers now than ever before. [0]: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/state-of-the-job-market-2026 https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/state-of-the-job-...
whstl 17d ago
About pro-AI boosters: One of the people in the company I work for/with is a non-programmer that has a “vibe coding consulting” gig on the side. Basically half of their Linkedin is about how they’re shipping features at half the speed as developers, with quality, etc. They’re not. They took about three months to prototype something that was rejected for not working/unreadable code. Another team built the same feature from scratch in a week. Seeing the other side of the grift is kind of pathetic.
- 3ddds 17d ago
  [dead]
  - whstl 17d ago
    I agree. It requires good judgement, domain knowledge, good work ethic. Grifters who think the LLM can do it all for them will definitely not survive in a competitive market.

3ddds 17d ago

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