[pydry]

We've been on this merry go round before with the "outsourcing to the cheapest programmers in india" boom.

That slopfest ended with a new executive dogma of "hire only the best programmers" as so many of those projects were humiliating disasters which had to be junked. I do not think that was coincidental.

Executive fashions can remain remarkably consistent and irrational for years as they try to make reality conform to their expectations before doing a complete 180.

[wtfHN26]

Funny you say that.

Outsourcing to India never ended. The Indian Service companies kept growing over last two decades.

Now many Western companies are setting up Global Capability Centers driving strategic innovation, IT, and R&D.

So the work going to India has moved up from "outsourcing to the cheapest programmers in india" to "we will hire the best talent in India directly and set up our company's base there".

To give some credit to your point, moving some low efficiency work to India since early 2000s freed up resources for many Tech companies to invest their best programmers into more profitable ventures.

But with the GCCs being set up in India, even a lot of the innovation and R&D work is now moving to India.

If that's any indication to your parallels with companies investing in AI. Something similar can happen with AI - where low end work moves to AI first, and the over time as the Technology develops more challenging and innovative tasks move to AI.

[citrin_ru]

Outsourcing never ended but it did happen in waves. Right after ZIRR ended but before the AI panic multiple companies started to layoff in developers in western countries and double down on outsourcing to India. During ZIRP they employed more people in the US/EU and less work was outsourced.