Working in big tech and the writing on the wall for our kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a journalist at a large media company. They have introduced an AI "helper" and it's not any better than I am. In fact, I have to reject most of its suggestions because it doesn't understand the nuance in a story and draws wrong conclusions.

I have had more success with ChatGPT in areas of health queries and understanding the zillion rules of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security so I can assist family members.

I am always surprised when people say "well it's bad at this area where I have expertise, but good for understanding an area I know nothing about." Wouldn't you think it's equally bad, and you just don't know enough to spot the errors?

I circle back to the source material to double check it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work in big tech and what I am learning every day about the future of AI is so so concerning when it comes to our kids future.

The vast majority of what we do in white collar jobs is about to become obsolete. Our kids will largely either vibe code their way to solopreneurship, be part of the 2% of people who might get a rare ‘corporate job’, do something you need a physical body for, learn to invest or be without income. College is going to be overhauled and in many ways no longer necessary

Jamie dimon is correct that countries need to quickly make it illegal to fire your whole workforce and replace with AI, so we can buy time to figure out what the f to do.

In the meantime we are moving and saving hard. Truly a nuts situation that I think people are only just starting to grasp

Tax the hell out of AI and give people UBI

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work in law and AI is constantly hallucinating things. How is this going to replace anyone at all?

Less of a problem with the models launched a couple of weeks ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not just big tech. I don’t understand what jobs and fields will be open to our kids. I still think writing and thinking are important, but many people seem to think AI can do that for us.

this is the point. They're all going

https://www.techspot.com/news/111306-ai-could-wipe-out-most-white-collar-jobs.html

“Creating a new model will be as simple as making a podcast or writing a blog.”

Those … aren’t “simple.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll believe it when I see it.

AI still hallucinates like crazy and needs a lot of prompt engineering and training to do anything useful.

The notion that AI can replace “the vast majority of what we do in white collar jobs” is kind of laughable.

Yes, it will replace some things.

But it is very unlikely to replace the “vast majority” of people.

You're wrong. Google anything about this and read. This is a real thing that is happening.

Ok, let’s take one example.

Explain to me how AI will replace lawyers.

I’m not talking about AI being incorporated into legal workflows.

I mean a world in which we have no lawyers because AI is doing all legal work.

Will an AI agent represent a client in court?

What about doctors? Professors?

Will kids enter a classroom and be taught by an AI agent?

Ethics rules / statutes currently prevent unlicensed humans from engaging in the unauthorized practice of law, so no, I don't see it happening anytime soon. While it could assist pro se litigants in representing themselves, business entities can't appear pro se.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in law and AI is constantly hallucinating things. How is this going to replace anyone at all?

Do you think AI will always be hallucinating in your field of work? Or do you think it will improve? In other words, are you confident that law will forever be shielded from AI?

Have we established that it improves with time and input? Or does it get more cluttered and hallucinatory?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work in big tech and what I am learning every day about the future of AI is so so concerning when it comes to our kids future.

The vast majority of what we do in white collar jobs is about to become obsolete. Our kids will largely either vibe code their way to solopreneurship, be part of the 2% of people who might get a rare ‘corporate job’, do something you need a physical body for, learn to invest or be without income. College is going to be overhauled and in many ways no longer necessary

Jamie dimon is correct that countries need to quickly make it illegal to fire your whole workforce and replace with AI, so we can buy time to figure out what the f to do.

In the meantime we are moving and saving hard. Truly a nuts situation that I think people are only just starting to grasp

It tells me you are a coding monkey. Everything you wrote is nonsense.

[Anonymous]

My prior job was a super forward tech company and I was head of a department with zero staff. Pretty much I had access to all days and tools to analyze data in real times.

My current job I have staff to do work full time and only reason they exist is we have dated systems, they won’t have jobs in 3-5 years. But here is a secret 50 percent of these people don’t care anyhow

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My prior job was a super forward tech company and I was head of a department with zero staff. Pretty much I had access to all days and tools to analyze data in real times.

My current job I have staff to do work full time and only reason they exist is we have dated systems, they won’t have jobs in 3-5 years. But here is a secret 50 percent of these people don’t care anyhow

Did anybody do anything with this real-time data?

Or was it "We pretend to monitor it and they pretend to care"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My prior job was a super forward tech company and I was head of a department with zero staff. Pretty much I had access to all days and tools to analyze data in real times.

My current job I have staff to do work full time and only reason they exist is we have dated systems, they won’t have jobs in 3-5 years. But here is a secret 50 percent of these people don’t care anyhow

Did anybody do anything with this real-time data?

Or was it "We pretend to monitor it and they pretend to care"?

I had real time data on everything in company. We had no private email. Every message in Slack, no shared drives, everything in Confluence and all docs were Google shared docs and Jira was used. No phones were used for work. All meetings were filmed, transcribed and kept. We were all remote. Everything had a KPI, KRI, deadline and we all knew querry language as had to know it or learn it to stay.

So basically, I had stuff 24/7. Basically no grunt work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP, is this realization just now hitting you lol? I had this convo with my colleagues 5 years ago.

I work in big tech and have no concerns about my kids. DH and I need to be able to hold on for 10 years to retire, I am nervous about that.

My kids are young but all interested in blue collar jobs that exist in the real world, not just the digital world. They will be fine.

This seems to be the way. We’ve got two teenage boys and we’re stressing the importance of physical jobs but also encouraging them to think bigger picture- someday owning a trade business where they can marry a skill and business sense and see upward mobility. We left the DC area several years ago for our smaller hometown and this is where the money is and jobs. My husband and I have both since lost our government tech adjacent jobs with the new administration (a good ten to fifteen years out from retirement) and have been thrust in to the local economy which is awful. But it was a serious wake-up call for us- cutting expenses, not being able to save, shopping on a budget, having hard conversations about money in a way we didn’t have to when we both had large salaries. I think a lot of us are going to find ourselves pivoting and it’s scary!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Suck on it, dad. Turns out being a horse girl was smart all along because you can't replace that with AI and billionaires will always have horses and need staff for them!

This is a crazy perspective. So horse girl, physical therapist, plumber, and probably certain medical specialties. Lots to dream about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My prior job was a super forward tech company and I was head of a department with zero staff. Pretty much I had access to all days and tools to analyze data in real times.

My current job I have staff to do work full time and only reason they exist is we have dated systems, they won’t have jobs in 3-5 years. But here is a secret 50 percent of these people don’t care anyhow

Did anybody do anything with this real-time data?

Or was it "We pretend to monitor it and they pretend to care"?

I had real time data on everything in company. We had no private email. Every message in Slack, no shared drives, everything in Confluence and all docs were Google shared docs and Jira was used. No phones were used for work. All meetings were filmed, transcribed and kept. We were all remote. Everything had a KPI, KRI, deadline and we all knew querry language as had to know it or learn it to stay.

So basically, I had stuff 24/7. Basically no grunt work

My current company operates this way too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP, is this realization just now hitting you lol? I had this convo with my colleagues 5 years ago.

I work in big tech and have no concerns about my kids. DH and I need to be able to hold on for 10 years to retire, I am nervous about that.

My kids are young but all interested in blue collar jobs that exist in the real world, not just the digital world. They will be fine.

This is such a naive and inaccurate statement. Who are the clients for blue collar workers? You guessed it, the professional class. Once majority of professionals lose their jobs, they can learn to fix their plumbing because they have no money to spend on your boys. You are talking a complete and utter collapse of society as we know it and NOBODY will escape it, especially not blue collar.

[Anonymous]

It is interesting that people think blue collar jobs are somehow immune. Maybe from AI alone but not from robotics and AI. Have you all seen the recent robot performances during China's lunar new year performance? When would I need human plumbers and roofers and electricians when the robots can move better than humans, can be configured to be any size, and is potentially smarter with AI brain? Blue collar will be first to go.