Support NeoGAF

[StreetsofBeige]

Maybe office jobbers should learn to work in a coal mine?

 

[RoboFu]

its a pretty moronic way to go. Companies use AI so they can make products cheaper that people can no longer afford because there are no good paying jobs.

 

[Mortisfacio]

I still think the "Learn to Code" meme history is hilarious

2014: Journos start telling people to learn to code
2015-2016: Telling miners to learn to code and we shut down coal mines to go green
2019: Journos get fired and 4chan memes back at them to learn to code
Today: Displacement of junior devs due to AI doing the mundane coding. Maybe they should work the mines?

 

[mckmas8808]

And everyone loses their jobs in all walks of life.

Be very careful of what you wish for when you children have no jobs.

A.I. won't ever be smart enough to take everyone's jobs.

 

[mckmas8808]

its a pretty moronic way to go. Companies use AI so they can make products cheaper that people can no longer afford because there are no good paying jobs.

It's the only way to go. Humans have constantly looked for more efficient ways to do work. It's been happening for 100s of years. There's no reason to stop now just because A.I. is the next step.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

Maybe office jobbers should learn to work in a coal mine?

As yes, coal mining. The untapped wealth that is unrealized by many, as seen whenever you go through West Virginia.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

End of the day, there's always jobs. In fact, there's so many jobs unemployment rates are still at historic lows (aside from covid years which were often mandated shut downs). So the jobs are there.

Comes down to if someone is good enough to hold onto a job and if someone can adjust and get a different one if they are cut.

Unless a company is going bankrupt and everyone gets canned, what do most companies do when they do mass layoffs the past bunch of years? 5% or 10% of people tops? So despite all the years of tech and AI killing jobs (where's all the AI trucks taking over shipping?) a typical company still keeps 90%+ of people. And that assumes the company cuts people. My company has been growing steady in sales and employees for over 10 years since I joined.

So dont fall for all the articles about job losses only. There's never articles about hiring (except Amazon and WM promoting holiday temp worker increases). If you truly only believed in losses only, every company would be insanely down workers and unemployment rates would be 80%.

Maybe all the digital deskjobbers who might be canned die to ChatGPT or whatever taking your job should get a bit more old school and work for a company that makes bread or cans of soup. You still need people to do physical parts of a job and even the desk job tasks can only be automated so much. Companies still need brain power to think of ideas, negotiate deals, agree on strategies etc....

It sounds like the digital jobbers getting phased out are Phase 2 of paper pushers losing jobs to automated invoicing and reports the past 30-40 years. A machine could do it way faster and more accurately (assuming things are set up perfectly). To keep a paper pushing kind of role, you got to adjust to the tech and be someone who can take that data and improve on it (ie. fix mistakes or use your head to do wonders with it a numbnut program like SAP can just spit out data).

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Lol nobody cared when factory jobs are gone but not my LGBTQRZ artists!

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

I still think the "Learn to Code" meme history is hilarious

2014: Journos start telling people to learn to code
2015-2016: Telling miners to learn to code and we shut down coal mines to go green
2019: Journos get fired and 4chan memes back at them to learn to code
Today: Displacement of junior devs due to AI doing the mundane coding. Maybe they should work the mines?

the saddest part is the wave after wave of programs and toys aimed at teaching every kid to code (and we have to reach girls too, make sure all girls code!)

but now the value of being able to code at a junior to mid level is very low on the market; and none of the people who simply learned the basics can contribute, you'll need to have built a more systematic fluency with the entire tech stack in order to be valuable.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Better not be the artists. If there’s one area where Blizzard excels its art.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

the saddest part is the wave after wave of programs and toys aimed at teaching every kid to code (and we have to reach girls too, make sure all girls code!)

but now the value of being able to code at a junior to mid level is very low on the market; and none of the people who simply learned the basics can contribute, you'll need to have built a more systematic fluency with the entire tech stack in order to be valuable.

Ah yes the "we only want people with 20 years of experience" job listings.

At some point everyone was a junior- something corporations tend to forget.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Lol nobody cared when factory jobs are gone but not my LGBTQRZ artists!

No kidding.

Despite blur collar jobs having union representation and it sometimes spills into public battles, I dont a sense the avg person gives a shit unless they are one of the people working the job. I dont think the avg person cares much for all the crazy LBQT stuff either. But for some reason, left leaning LBGT hot topics got lots of traction the past 5-10 years (even among politicians), while the factory work transitioning to overseas or automation the past 40 years is kind of accepted as part of society.

Probably has to do with factory guys being pretty quiet (aside from strikes) as they arent the type do do endless social media campaigns and cancel culture. But a pink haired person will do that all day on Twitter.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

Ah yes the "we only want people with 20 years of experience" job listings.

At some point everyone was a junior- something corporations tend to forget.

that was already a major hiring issue, to be sure -- every job looking for pre-existing experience

But it's considerably worse now with AI. I can speak from experience on the other side of the equation, that where I would have added a junior person to my current team in prior years, now just 2 of us higher level developers can do the work of an entire team, by having AI churn out all the first-draft low level & boilerplate for every project or task. A junior's ability to just do basic clean code doesn't really amount to any value added now.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

that was already a major hiring issue, to be sure -- every job looking for pre-existing experience

But it's considerably worse now with AI. I can speak from experience on the other side of the equation, that where I would have added a junior person to my current team in prior years, now just 2 of us higher level developers can do the work of an entire team, by having AI churn out all the first-draft low level & boilerplate for every project or task. A junior's ability to just do basic clean code doesn't really amount to any value added now.

Ya, hiring only vets isnt new. Some companies hiring juniors or new grads. Some dont. I've worked at both kinds of companies. Typically the larger the company with way more roles to fill they are open to newbies as they need someone to fill the seat. A small leaner company or dept can afford to look for an experienced person.

If techie kinds of people are having a hard time, one advantage they have over other roles is they can do offline work or make websites or portfolios of their work. Or prove they can do different kinds of programming or hobby work on their own time using freeware tools.

You cant do that if youre in sales, finance, marketing etc.... Youre job is based on actual company stuff and tools.

 

[Halo is Back]

It's only going to get worse. Megacorps are all too happy to take jobs away for A.I. so they can save a few bucks and it will continue to spread into other industries until we have an unemployment crisis.

 

[StereoVsn]

its a pretty moronic way to go. Companies use AI so they can make products cheaper that people can no longer afford because there are no good paying jobs.

But does it matter if the C suite gets a bonus at the end of the year. Future worries for Future executives since CxOs can jump ship with a golden parachute .

And yeah, a lot of junior jobs especially in a bunch of white collar industries are disappearing. And it’s starting to creep into mid range. Plus PMs and mid level managers get cut due to AI bullshit… resulting in super stressed workers and remaining PMs/managers.

What the f are companies going to do in 10 years with current boomers and older Gen X retiring? See the first paragraph.

 

[StereoVsn]

that was already a major hiring issue, to be sure -- every job looking for pre-existing experience

But it's considerably worse now with AI. I can speak from experience on the other side of the equation, that where I would have added a junior person to my current team in prior years, now just 2 of us higher level developers can do the work of an entire team, by having AI churn out all the first-draft low level & boilerplate for every project or task. A junior's ability to just do basic clean code doesn't really amount to any value added now.

Yep, been saying this for last 2 years. I would have had like 4 junior engineers on my team but can’t hire them because CoPilot/Github/ChatGPT even at say $100-200/month (for several apps plus tokens) per mid to senior devs are cheaper vs hiring people.

The situation sucks and getting worse.

Edit: For “Learn a trade” people, besides clear issues with it in the first place, robotics is getting to similar point as LLMs in say 2019-2020.

In 5-10 years you will have a senior plumber or electrician come out to a job with a robot they will once again do the work instead of apprentices. Keep in mind that a ton of small trade businesses in US is being bought up by private equity now days. Shit is going to get dystopian pretty fast.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

In 5-10 years you will have a senior plumber or electrician come out to a job with a robot they will once again do the work instead of apprentices.

good point, this does seem feasible; I hadn't thought much about the impact on trades because those require the expertise of a human who can look at the situation and make a smart choice, but indeed if it parallels what we're doing in software engineering jobs, it makes perfect sense that we'll just see one knowledgable plumber or contractor supervising an assistant robot to the labor that was done by multiple human assistants.

 

[Griffon]

Embrace automation.
If we didn't we would still be calculating complex maths by hand and working in the fields.

Nobody is entitled to a job that a machine can do in a fraction of the time. It's already over.

 

[StereoVsn]

good point, this does seem feasible; I hadn't thought much about the impact on trades because those require the expertise of a human who can look at the situation and make a smart choice, but indeed if it parallels what we're doing in software engineering jobs, it makes perfect sense that we'll just see one knowledgable plumber or contractor supervising an assistant robot to the labor that was done by multiple human assistants.

Yeah, and it’s likely we will have $50k -$100K robots being able to do those jobs (with supervision ). No complaints about overtime , no issues climbing into attic running cable, no problems with inhaling fumes and so on.

It’s kind of scary the effect it will have on blue color work (white color work will be majorly fucked by then).

And I think we will see similar advances in medical field, from nursing to doctors.

Embrace automation.
If we didn't we would still be calculating complex maths by hand and working in the fields.

Nobody is entitled to a job that a machine can do in a fraction of the time. It's already over.

Except this time it doesn’t look like there will be other fields to absorb these unemployed workers. You are taking about potentially tens of millions people in US alone and hundreds of millions world wide without work, u able to provide for their families and angry.

Oh and in US they got guns.

 

[Nickolaidas]

What we're calling AI has the capability to lead to the Industrial Revolution of the digital world. It's certainly going to jeopardize some jobs but it's going to create different ones. Things people have had to do by hand, like write code and create digital art/music, is the new low hanging fruit for automation.

Coders and digital artists have been the modern blacksmiths and their creations are like the hand-pounded iron products of that age. The thing is that iron products from automated factories are cheaper to produce and, while not as good as handmade, are good enough. The same is becoming true for digital creations. What made blacksmiths largely obsolete is going to do the same for people who create digital works to be sold at scale. Code, digital art, and digital music created by robots may certainly not be as good as what people can make but it is certainly good enough for video games. Genres and art styles have solidified to the point where they've created templates that are possible for robots to emulate and the robots are continually getting better at it.

Now is the time when digital artists working for corporations need to evolve and master the tools that will make them obsolete. Technology is now able to take the manual work out of digital creation so they need to learn to use those tools if they want to keep doing the work they're doing.

I think this is a perfect, spot-on analogy. Well said.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Thought the thread title was Weird Al is Already Taking Jobs...

And I was like

THIS MAN MUST BE STOPPED

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

Thought the thread title was Weird Al is Already Taking Jobs...

And I was like

THIS MAN MUST BE STOPPED

 

[ReBurn]

I swear every time I see this thread I wonder what Weird Al is doing taking jobs in the game industry.

 

[kevboard]

Weird Al must be stopped for sure.
noone can compete with him