Technological Unemployment News & Discussions

[Tadasuke]

I remember how my female friend became visibly and obviously less happy after she starting working. That was not only my observation. It was like seeing joy sucked out of her. But the work needs to be done and this isn't the case for everyone. From what I see, automation isn't moving very quickly, especially in physical jobs. The direction is obvious and clear, but the speed isn't very satisfactory in my opinion.

[Cyber_Rebel]

CEOs get closer to finally saying it — AI will wipe out more jobs than they can count

(Business Insider)

What's it like to be told that you're not just out of a job, but that your bosses think your job can be done by AI? Tech workers are about to find out.

On Monday, per a report by Bloomberg, it emerged that IBM is preparing to pause hiring on roles that it believed could be better performed by AI. That leaves 7,800 jobs at the tech giant vulnerable to being eradicated for good.

Since the release of ChatGPT, tech CEOs have been racing to decide if the generative AI technology underlying the buzzy chatbot is more than a gimmick and can deliver on its promises to change the very fundamental ways in which their businesses operate.

Earnings calls from tech firms such as Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft have been littered with references to AI, with the verdict on the technology from leaders becoming more apparent than ever: AI can and will make jobs extinct.

I'm thinking this is the decade which will challenge the idea of Capitalism the most, from the pandemic which revealed serious cracks in the system, and now to A.I. poised to drastically alter it in some measure.

[Powers]

I'm thinking this is the decade which will challenge the idea of Capitalism the most, from the pandemic which revealed serious cracks in the system, and now to A.I. poised to drastically alter it in some measure.

Not sure if challenge but definitely change it.

[caltrek]

I am thinking that the United States can weather the coming storm pretty well but only if they continue:

• Protectionist/neo-mercantilist efforts to reinvigorate the manufacturing sector.

• Spending funds on space exploration

• High levels of military spending

• Health and welfare measures such as Medicare, Medicaid, environmental infrastructure improvements, etc

• Measures to minimize climate change and adapt to climate change that can no longer be avoided

High levels of military spending could be easily reduced if China and Russia took less belligerent positions on issues related to Eastern Europe, the Ukraine, and the South China Sea. All of these measures combined would generate a potentially increasing level of demand that could offset even dramatic losses in employment due to "technological unemployment." Of course, some of these measures may not be good for the rest of the planet. Protectionist/neo-mercantilist measures would impact foreign countries dependent upon exports to boost their economic position in the world. This would magnify the impact of technological unemployment. Military spending might heighten tensions and result in pursuit of an overly aggressive foreign policy.

Am I missing something?

[Cyber_Rebel]

Am I missing something?

Universal Basic Income or a Standard Basic Living Package (enough basic needs for a person to live on)

I'd go a step further with the second and include free access to Chat GPT-4 and all higher iterations for giving people displaced by A.I. the ability to still utilize it in their daily lives if need be. Should the personal home robots these companies seek to bring to market become available by then, it should be included as standard as well.

[wjfox]

An Entire Generation is Studying for Jobs that Won’t Exist

AI is taking over a lot of jobs, now it is coming for the writers who wrote about “machines taking over the world.”

Published on May 4, 2023

Mark Cuban, the famous American businessman, said this in 2017 – ““Artificial Intelligence, deep learning, machine learning — whatever you’re doing if you don’t understand it — learn it. Because otherwise you’re going to be a dinosaur within 3 years.”

Cuban is back with another prediction. The highest paying college major in the world, computer science, will hold very little value for employers in the future. Why? Because of AI. “Twenty years from now, if you are a coder, you might be out of a job,” Cuban said in an interview on the Recode Decode podcast with Kara Swisher. “Because it’s just math, and so, whatever we’re defining the AI to do, someone’s got to know the topic.”

There is no doubt that what he predicted back in 2017 is increasingly coming true. The increasing capabilities of AI are definitely making a lot of jobs obsolete, not just the ones that require coding.

On Monday, in an interesting turn of events, Hollywood’s film and several TV writers from the Writers Guild of America (WGA) commenced a protest with the disagreement over AI getting involved for writing scripts, essentially to limit the use of AI in writing scripts. Interesting to see how the writers who have been writing about “machines taking over the world” all these years, are the ones who are getting affected now. We don’t know who planted the idea first.

https://analyticsindiamag.com/an-entire ... ont-exist/

[wjfox]

[raklian]

An Entire Generation is Studying for Jobs that Won’t Exist

AI is taking over a lot of jobs, now it is coming for the writers who wrote about “machines taking over the world.”


https://analyticsindiamag.com/an-entire ... ont-exist/

[weatheriscool]

A.i Will force society to adopt a basic income for the masses and if the republicans choose to not then we'll probably have a civil war or break up. Work will become a choice and something you do for personal advancement beyond the basics.

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

A.i Will force society to adopt a basic income for the masses and if the republicans choose to not then we'll probably have a civil war or break up. Work will become a choice and something you do for personal advancement beyond the basics.

Oh boy. Lemme guess the ones who are wealthy or become wealthy have the choice of having brain computer interfaces installed if there has not been something high quality created that can be an option to not have those. After all most of the establishment here in the USA in your local areas are afraid of their own shadow so that is why the police reflected such behavior before 2020. So yeah the whole coralling of people and everything digitally can go right back to even local areas for USA example.

[wjfox]

BT to cut up to 55,000 jobs by end of decade

20 minutes ago

Telecoms giant BT is to cut up to 55,000 jobs in the UK and globally by the end of the decade as it cuts costs.

The headcount reduction, which will be up to 40% of the current workforce of 130,000 includes staff and contractors.

It comes after Vodafone would axe a tenth of its staff over the next three years, equating to 11,000 jobs.

[...]

As the network moves away from copper to fibre, it will become more reliable, and need fewer people to maintain both networks.

And newer, more efficient technology, including artificial intelligence, will mean fewer people will be needed to serve customers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65631168



BT Group

[Ozzie guy]

US Employment Rate
In January 60.20%
In February 60.20%
In March 60.40%
In April 60.40%


Australia Employment Rate
In January 64.1%
In February 64.3%
In March 64.4%
In April 64.2%




I am starting from January 2023 so each time a year passes I can replace months for that year with the yearly average. It is also after covid recovery and before AI has any impact. (I might later include a yearly average for a year such as 2022 or 2019 if technological unemployment happens this year.)

Lowest US has been since 1948 aka covid crash is 51.30

So low 50s = $hit hitting the fan.

[wjfox]

I don't think you can extrapolate a trend from only four months of data.

If we go back to 1980, the trend is a lot clearer. I will update this graph at some point.

[Ozzie guy]

I don't think you can extrapolate a trend from only four months of data.

If we go back to 1980, the trend is a lot clearer. I will update this graph at some point.

It is a monthly post I have been doing I guess with the assumption that things might get crazy soon and it forces me to pay attention.

I sometimes watch the futurist Kartic Gada who I think you also watch. He does various graphs, trends etc which I think motivated me a bit to keep a tab on it.

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

Eating Disorder Helpline Fires Staff, Transitions to Chatbot After Unionization

25 May 2023, 5:52pm

Executives at the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) decided to replace hotline workers with a chatbot named Tessa four days after the workers unionized.

NEDA, the largest nonprofit organization dedicated to eating disorders, has had a helpline for the last twenty years that provided support to hundreds of thousands of people via chat, phone call, and text. “NEDA claims this was a long-anticipated change and that AI can better serve those with eating disorders. But do not be fooled—this isn’t really about a chatbot. This is about union busting, plain and simple,” helpline associate and union member Abbie Harper wrote in a blog post.

According to Harper, the helpline is composed of six paid staffers, a couple of supervisors, and up to 200 volunteers at any given time. A group of four full-time workers at NEDA, including Harper, decided to unionize because they felt overwhelmed and understaffed.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7ezkm/ ... ionization

[wjfox]

It's becoming clear that AI is going to whack the mediocre middle of office workers

Matt Turner
Jun 2, 2023, 12:45 PM BST

"Mediocrity will be automated."

That was the verdict a top tech executive shared with me recently, describing the impact he predicted AI would have on the workforce. And while the phrasing might seem a bit harsh, there's growing evidence that he might be on to something.

More specifically, AI could disproportionately impact the middle class of white-collar workers — the folks who are mid-career, mid-ability, mid-level, and yes, in some cases, mediocre. Here's why:

https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-arti ... ?r=US&IR=T

[weatheriscool]

IBM plans to replace 7,800 jobs with AI over time, pauses hiring certain positions
https://arstechnica.com/information-tec ... ced-by-ai/

"IBM Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna has revealed plans to pause hiring for about 7,800 positions that could be replaced by artificial intelligence systems over time, according to a Bloomberg news report published Monday.

Krishna said that hiring in back-office functions like human resources will be suspended or slowed, affecting roughly 26,000 non-customer-facing roles. That will include not replacing current roles vacated by attrition. "I could easily see 30 percent of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period," Bloomberg quoted Krisha as saying in an interview.

The announcement comes at a time when generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT have stirred anxiety about the future of human jobs. In March, Goldman Sachs released a report estimating that generative AI may "expose" 300 million jobs to automation, which means those roles might be reduced or replaced by AI systems."

[funkervogt]

IMF warns of rise in technological unemployment

(Reuters) - IMF First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath has warned of "substantial disruptions in labour markets" stemming from generative artificial intelligence and called on policymakers to quickly craft rules to govern the technology, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

"We need governments, we need institutions and we need policymakers to move quickly on all fronts, in terms of regulation, but also in terms of preparing for probably substantial disruptions in labour markets," Gopinath said in an interview to FT.

She also advocated for governments to bolster "social safety nets" for workers affected by the adoption of AI, while working on tax policies that do not reward companies replacing employees with machines.

Gopinath cautioned policymakers to be careful in case some corporations emerge with an unassailable position in the new technology.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/imfs ... 21573.html

[spryfusion]

AI eliminated nearly 4,000 jobs in May, report says

For those wondering when AI will start replacing human jobs, the answer is it already has.

Artificial intelligence contributed to nearly 4,000 job losses last month, according to data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, as interest in the rapidly evolving technology's ability to perform advanced organizational tasks and lighten workloads has intensified.

The report released Thursday by the outplacement firm shows that layoff announcements from U.S.-based employers reached more than 80,000 in May — a 20% jump from the prior month and nearly four times the level for the same month last year. Of those cuts, AI was responsible for 3,900, or roughly 5% of all jobs lost, making it the seventh-highest contributor to employment losses in May cited by employers.

The job cuts come as businesses waste no time adopting advanced AI technology to automate a range of tasks — including creative work, such as writing, as well as administrative and clerical work. The AI industry is expected to grow to more than $1 trillion fueled by major technological advancements that became apparent last fall with the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT bot, a report by Bloomberg Intelligence analysts shows.

Read more here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ai-job-los ... er-report/