What the fuck are they on?! Have you tried applying somewhere, only to get a rejection email before you close the tab? AI has been affecting jobs for years, get your head out your ass…
IDK if you are in the USA, but the American economy is close to recession, and the job market is affected by that. I find it very plausible that AI hasn’t had the results we often hear, about increasing efficiency and replacing workers. Those stories are hyped, and probably also pushed by marketing people in the AI industry.
AI is mostly used to aid workers, and I suspect the efficiency boost isn’t nearly as impressive as is often claimed in media.Remember if a CEO betting on AI to cut cost or improve quality, was wildly successful, he (the company) would probably boast about it. For now all we hear are such companies EXPECTING those results, never that they actually achieved them.
I haven’t even tried applying to a tech company job (web developer) since I got laid off during the pandemic, so I’m going off of old data. Way before AI was the buzzword/next big thing, companies were using a form of “AI” to parse, and auto reject applications.
They are using it as their current excuse for outsourcing.
It’s not AI doing that.
This is because the real economy is going into recession and all the job cuts are actually because of that. AI is a big facade to try to conceal this.
The Budget Lab is funded by Arnold Ventures, the California Community Foundation, Ford Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, NEO Philanthropy, Peter G. Peterson Foundation, and Yagan Family Foundation.
Juat FYI: Almost all these sources of funding for the lab this report is coming from have some kind of stake in AI themselves.
Yeah that headline seems like capitalists trying to calm down the masses.
Not to worry! When the AI bubble bursts and drags down the US stock market with it, it’ll have an impact on jobs all right.
Hmm I actually recall multiple high profile rounds of layoffs citing AI as the primary reason behind them. I guess they must have misspoken.
I used to get a lot more freelance writing and design gigs before AI. It was great under the table money because, at times, I recieve partial support for my disability, and they deduct from my monthly funds if I make money. It’s not enough to live on to begin with, so I relied on side gigs for any savings at all.
Now? I get none. Former clients have outright told me it’s just cheaper to use AI or Canva or whatever. I have friends with similar stories, so I wonder just how much of the unseen labor market was affected by this.
I don’t blame AI. It’s a neat technology and there’s nothing inherently wrong with. I blame capitalism for stealing from artists, building unsustainably, and for creating a world where people have to worry about lost funds from designing bullshit web graphics and business cards instead of having the time, money and bandwidth to follow our passions.
Yeah, that tracks with what I see, at least. Either it’s used as an excuse for layoffs that likely would happen anyway given the market, or they’re just included in a workflow without firing (the US was already in bad shape after COVID, with tech companies already laying off people they over-hired during lockdown)
I’ve got a friend who pays under the table to a guy to write and edit instructional videos, and still does that since there’s never enough videos to produce for her project. Just, now, the guy uses AI in his workflow and… I’d say maybe produces at about the same pace (fact checking the AI takes time, lol).
But basically, AI didn’t replace her copy writer / editor, they just scaled up (or at least, attempted to, lol).
Right after COVID, they used largely unnecessary back-to-work orders to trim the workforce. That was nice for them, as they don’t pay severance if you quit over back-to-work.
Now that is exhausted, they can still use AI as cover for hiring less and laying off workforce to avoid spooking investors into realizing they are contracting.
Also remember that tech companies tend to be evaluated based on insane growth predictions, so anything less than that can spook investors and crash their stock price. They are desperate for cover. Same reason they make lots of fake job postings they will never actually hire for. It’s all a shell game for the stock price.
Tell that to Klarna…
This appears to be specifically around US employment; most of the jobs list to AI would be ones that had already been offshored, wouldn’t they?
Methinks they are wrong lol.
This study is from 2015.
Right?
This study is from 2015.
Right?
I think it’s exactly a decade later, 2025. https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/evaluating-impact-ai-labor-market-current-state-affairs
