[asdff]

They don't need AGI to fire you or not make jobs you would have taken. All these pro ai devs on here talking about 10x productivity gains in their own work like management isn't looking at those claims and thinking about a 10x reduction in headcount.

[lelandbatey]

Sure, but any competitor is looking at their competition maintaining level productivity w/ 10x headcount reductions and wondering "if I use AI and the staff I have without firing them, I can provide 10x the product as the idiot cutting off their own nose over there."

[asdff]

More product more problems. Can you get 10x the sales? If you can't then the headcount reduction looks pretty compelling. If you can get 10x the sales, why aren't you already scaling labor?

[ATMLOTTOBEER]

Because the marginal profit of scaling labor is zero or negative?

[asdff]

Workers typically bring in more revenue than they are paid otherwise they wouldn’t be hired.

[dragonwriter]

Increased productivity increases the value of work and the number of areas it is useful to apply it. Yes, if you are working for a non-growth firm with basically fixed sales, a productivity increase translates to a headcount decrease in that firm, but across the industry it means more jobs at higher pay, as shown by the whole history of productivity improvements in software development.

[asdff]

Increased productivity requires demand to make use of it. And if there was untapped demand on the table already, it would have been eaten already through labor gains even if productivity didn’t shift.