10% to 20% unemployment within 5 years

[bythoughts]

AI is nowhere near good enough to replace workers for many jobs. It just isn't ready for prime time, and it's already consuming itself by flooding the Internet with AI Slop, and training itself on that same AI Slop.

That's not a bug, it's a feature.

The AI monopolists need to make sure that they and only they have archives of the whole old internet, and that includes spewing AI Slop all over what's left so some upstart couldn't archive from scratch even if they were allowed to.

 

[Eriech]

AI finally has my attention.

Major company CEOs are talking about major worker cutbacks due to the emergence of AI tools. Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley predicts half of white-collar workers will be replaced. Marianne Lake, JPMorgan Chase CEO, could see her labor force reduced by 10%.

“This is a wake-up call,” [Micha Kaufman, CEO of Fiverr] wrote. “It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person—AI is coming for you.”

There are executives who believe the alarm is overblown. Entry level jobs, they say, are not disappearing. Those tasks AI eliminates also create other employable jobs.

I doubt I'll be personally impacted one way or another. Now my grandchildren and their cousins most certainly will be. The question becomes how do young people now choose a reliable and stable career?

Post derived from CEOs Start Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: AI Will Wipe Out Jobs, Chip Cutter and Haley Zimmerman, Wall Street Journal, 7/2/2025 (Paywall)

All those people encourgaged to just learn to code instead of the real work they already knew.....

 

[bomberfox]

And who in congress would know enough about AI to write the regulations?

Its…. Not really that hard… no really it isnt…

 

[Felis Leo]

The rich should probably study some historical examples of what can happen when the working classes are relegated to poverty with little hope.

There is always work for professional guillotine sharpeners. That is a very bespoke industry.

 

[Helix]

There is always work for professional guillotine sharpeners. That is a very bespoke industry.

I read a short story called Sans Farine, which is written from the point of view of an executioner during the French Revolution. It was grim.

 

[JoeB131]

I read a short story called Sans Farine, which is written from the point of view of an executioner during the French Revolution. It was grim.

 

[joluoto]

The only thing that can be predicted with confidence is that economic predictions are always wrong.

Well not always. Will AI definitely shake up the labor market and kill carreers? Yes. But which carreers, how many and how fast? That I think we won't be able to predict. I can tell you this though, I don't think generative AI will kill many jobs, it's just too unreliable. Likewise I don't think we are that close to AGI yet, but I think there will be many ANI breathroughs coming in the next few years. And people right now are really underestimating ANI, and they shouldn't. A narrow and focused AI that is created to do a few narrowly defined specific tasks very well, that's the things that can really shake things up in the near future.

 

[Along Came Jones]

A related update from the Wall Street Journal.

In industries where AI is taking on white-collar corporate functions, there is often little unionization, and employees might feel powerless to push back, said Molly Kinder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who is studying AI’s effects on workers. She has been struck by how little public criticism companies have received when executives telegraph AI-related staffing reductions.

“I’m worried it’s happening in plain sight with no blowback, no pushback, and it’s going to become the norm,” she said. “I don’t think that’s good news for the American worker.”

Some employers seem almost to take pride in announcing efforts to increase revenue or profits while cutting staff or keeping head count flat.

“Something feels remarkably different about this moment,” she said.

CEOs Are Shrinking Their Workforces—and They Couldn’t Be Prouder
Bosses aren’t just unapologetic about staff cuts. Many are touting shrinking head counts as accomplishments in the AI era. (Paywall)

 

[iliveonramen]

Where's all the case studies of AI being used to replace departments or job functions? For new tech that is constantly in the news and constantly being heralded as the second industrial revolution, there's really not many examples of actual practical applications of AI.

Also, investors are rewarding companies for adopting AI. Of course when companies cut workers for profitability, they are going to say "because we have been so good at using AI". Just like the people making AI are constantly in the news for making a claim bigger than the last guy. I remember an OpenAI worker claiming before the release of a previous version, that he was afraid OpenAI was sentient.

I'll start worrying when I start seeing actual specifics of AI replacing people. Right now, as someone that works in Tech, it's a very top down situation where C-Suite is really pushing for people to up AI metrics.

 

[bomberfox]

A related update from the Wall Street Journal.

In industries where AI is taking on white-collar corporate functions, there is often little unionization, and employees might feel powerless to push back, said Molly Kinder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who is studying AI’s effects on workers. She has been struck by how little public criticism companies have received when executives telegraph AI-related staffing reductions.

“I’m worried it’s happening in plain sight with no blowback, no pushback, and it’s going to become the norm,” she said. “I don’t think that’s good news for the American worker.”

Some employers seem almost to take pride in announcing efforts to increase revenue or profits while cutting staff or keeping head count flat.

“Something feels remarkably different about this moment,” she said.

CEOs Are Shrinking Their Workforces—and They Couldn’t Be Prouder
Bosses aren’t just unapologetic about staff cuts. Many are touting shrinking head counts as accomplishments in the AI era. (Paywall)

Its what happens when you give people with the exact opposite class interests to the rest of society all the power.

 

[tharock220]

The only thing that can be predicted with confidence is that economic predictions are always wrong.

This. It doesn't matter if the forecast is good or bad. Anybody who can truly see the future could make a ton of money.