>As previously noted, the metrics from OpenAI and Anthropic are imperfect proxies for AI risk and usage, while still being the best available.
Seems they're just coming out and admitting they refuse to measure it themselves. Not a good sign.
One specific stupid manager will absolutely replace people, but the overall dynamic isn't any more broken than it used to be.
What, personally, I think it's very surprising.
I seem to remember the latest tools for software developers were pushed in the business organisation by the developers - and eventually the folk at the top relented and accepted it.
When the reverse is happening, alarm bells should ring.
But hey, Im not against these CEOs destroying the culture within the firm and making their employees hate their guts, resulting in negative productivity gains.
But it's definitely had an effect on jobs.
It's made so many underqualified people think they have a new superpower, and made so many people miserable with the implied belittling of their actual skills. It's really damaging work culture.
Of course studies like this are aimed at people who think jobs are interchangeable neutral little black boxes that can be scaled up and scaled down, and who don't like to think about what they involve.
> Overall, our metrics indicate that the broader labor market has not experienced a discernible disruption since ChatGPT’s release
Because metrics don't tell the story.
Title implies all things AI, when they were actually looking at GenAI. I know it's what everyone thinks of, but I hate how everything gets muddled.
I suspect AI is currently fashionable as a smokescreen to justify deep cost cutting (See MSFT example.)
I also had a vibe coded prototype get handed to me to fix it
> The debate over whether AI is taking people’s jobs may or may not last forever. If AI takes a lot of people’s jobs, the debate will end because one side will have clearly won. But if AI doesn’t take a lot of people’s jobs, then the debate will never be resolved, because there will be a bunch of people who will still go around saying that it’s about to take everyone’s job. Sometimes those people will find some subset of workers whose employment prospects are looking weaker than others, and claim that this is the beginning of the great AI job destruction wave. And who will be able to prove them wrong?
Lets focus on the tech firms that produce software.
Two things should happen if AI proliferates into software development:
1) Increasing top line - due to more projects being taken by enabling labour to be more productive 2) Operating margin increasing - due to labour input declining and taking more cost-reduction projects
If those 2 things dont occur - the AI investment was a waste of money from a financial perspective. And this is before I even discount the cash flows by the cost of capital of these high-risk projects (high discount rate).
At some point everyone will be analysed in this manner. Only Nvidia is winning as it stands, ironically, not because of LLMs. But rather because they sell the hardware that LLMs operate on.
From "House restores immediate R&D deduction in new tax bill" (2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39213002 .. https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=38988189 :
>> "Since amortization took effect [ in 2022 thanks to a time-triggered portion of the Trump-era Tax Cuts and Jobs Act ("TCJA" 2017) ], the growth rate of R&D spending has slowed dramatically from 6.6 percent on average over the previous five years to less than one-half of 1 percent over the last 12 months," Estes said. "The [R&D] sector is down by more than 14,000 jobs"
> Hopefully R&D spending at an average of 6.6% will again translate to real growth
From "Generative AI as Seniority-Biased Technological Change" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45275202 :
> Did tech reduce hiring after Section 174 R&D tax policy changes?
[...]
> From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45131866 :
>> In 2017 Trump made businesses have to amortize these [R&D] expenses over 5 years instead of deducting them, starting in 2022 (it is common for an administration to write laws that will only have a negative effect after they're gone). This move wrecked the R&D tax credit. Many US businesses stopped claiming R&D tax credits entirely as a result. Others had surprise tax bills
> People just want the same R&D tax incentives back:
> "Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)" (2025 (2439 points)) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44226145
It is suspected that hiring levels correlate with the cancelling of the R&D Tax credit.
The TCJA (2017 Trump) cancelled the R&D tax credit.
The OBBA (2025 Trump) restored the R&D tax credit for tax year 2025.
Automation seems to be a better excuse than outsourcing
Every year, large companies secretly rank employees and then yank the 10% or so they consider low performing. This is called rank and yank [1]. If your company has performance reviews and is ran by MBAs it almost certainly uses it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve
The most important aspect of rank and yank is that it has to be done in secrecy. Your company will not tell you it is using it. Even your manager might not know this.
When rank and yank is not done in secrecy, employees react to it by hiring the most mediocre people they can, sabotaging/isolating strong performers, hiring to fire, forming peer review/code review mafias, etc.
MBAs are silly people who believe in the work of the person that kickstarted the decline of America, Jack Welch. Jack Welch extracted record profits from GE for 20 years, but left it a hollowed-out "pile of shit," according to his successor. Yet, he is the MBA god and everyone aspires to be exactly like him. Thanks to Jack Welch nobody ever hears about GE anymore ever.
So to pull off a rank and yank every year you need a scapegoat, and this year the scapegoat is AI. In previous years it has been the economy, or some other excuse.
Have you ever wondered why your company is laying off people while having job postings for the same positions?
AI is the perfect scapegoat because the company can claim they're using AI and boost their value somehow.
ChrisArchitect•1h ago