Knowledge workers, whose jobs involve handling information rather than producing goods, were supposed to be the beneficiaries of neoliberalism and globalization. But generative AI and a hypercompetitive employment market is immiserating them too.
The issue is that anyone who looks objectively at the technology knows that AI / LLMs can’t replace knowledge workers in a large set of tasks, yet you see week after week… month after month the pattern
Some new company says going to replace x% of employees with AI…
X weeks / months later… said company reports the attempt was a failure and are having to hire people back
It is as the thought of saving the money of firing all those people is too much to resist for “top management”.
You would think after the first batch of companies go through the same, other companies would learn, yet I just keep seeing the same happen again and again.
There is also the potential backslash. Specially if “management” is dumb enough to try and present firing hundreds / thousands of people like a a good thing… for example Duolingo’s case
Well, what can I say, such companies, as soon as they find out that they can save money, will immediately do it, and not only companies, but also ordinary people.
It’s basically some sort of Enshitification: AI does the job bad in short time so the company can make more? Quality is not important as long as a shitty version of the product can go live.
The issue is that anyone who looks objectively at the technology knows that AI / LLMs can’t replace knowledge workers in a large set of tasks, yet you see week after week… month after month the pattern
It is as the thought of saving the money of firing all those people is too much to resist for “top management”.
You would think after the first batch of companies go through the same, other companies would learn, yet I just keep seeing the same happen again and again.
There is also the potential backslash. Specially if “management” is dumb enough to try and present firing hundreds / thousands of people like a a good thing… for example Duolingo’s case
Well, what can I say, such companies, as soon as they find out that they can save money, will immediately do it, and not only companies, but also ordinary people.
It’s basically some sort of Enshitification: AI does the job bad in short time so the company can make more? Quality is not important as long as a shitty version of the product can go live.