[athrowaway3z]

Just to throw out the counterargument here.

The way AI replaces work is in that there is an enormous ROI to work with fewer (and smarter) people. Those social interactions are a big part of work, but they are only very rarely "the work", and they cost time. In the cases that they are required; they seem to cluster and the ROI of fewer social synchronization problems increases even more.

But that might all be wrong. I'm not confident enough to say where we'll land. I also see its possible demand will go up faster because of/and enabled by the increase in supply, and the social aspect is "the real work" to be done.

[boshalfoshal]

I agree. I think most companies would be better off being 100% AI driven since synchronization problems for agents (or whatever the fad will be) is likely much lower than human social synchronization, and has more rich information transfer between "workers" (so less ambiguity, less tradeoffs to be made, etc).

As soon as a person enters the loop you add a manual sync point that probably doesn't need to be there. I think this is why you are increasingly seeing companies tell their people to be "on the loop" or "out of the loop" with their AI. The less syncing with a person, the better. And I think once this experiment runs its course, we will probably find out that human social interaction matters much less than we thought it did, especially for super transactional things like a corporate job where most of your work is done on a computer.

[ipython]

Why do you need “smarter” people? Isn’t the llm the replacement for the intellect?

[abmmgb]

agreed with that take it is not direct replacement, at present, but rather job market shrinkage in sectors where AI can get more work done

[_aavaa_]

What is a job market shrinkage but a replacement of unfilled/unposted position? The distinction between (obviating the need to hire someone because the AI does the work) and (firing someone and having the AI do the work) is quickly becoming a distinction without a difference, especially if you're looking for a job.

[rkomorn]

This feels very much like a distinction without a difference to me.

[abmmgb]

you are prob right, it is still job replacement, the underlying mechanism is secondary/irrelevant..