The assumption behind this comment is that AI is more productive than Human + AI at this point in time, and I don’t think we’ve seen that be true yet.

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Refreeze5224 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, the assumption is that companies are more interested in cutting labor costs than productivity. Even if you screw up and need to hire back 50% of those you fired, you still cut the labor costs of the 50% still fired. And you can pretend to be a cool, thought-leading, "AI-native" company, which might be enough to juice your share price enough to offset any actual productivity loss.

Capital will always be in opposition to the cost of labor and want to make it as close to zero as possible, and AI is a plausible story for attempting that, regardless of the reality of AI efficiency.

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SoftTalker 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Henry Ford (allegedly a Capitalist) thought he should pay his employees enough that they could afford to buy the cars his company produced.

Businesses ultimately need customers. In a world where AI does all the work, there will be no buyers.

	▲	opo an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It is amazing how that bit of corporate PR is still being quoted over 100 years later. In reality, Ford had huge turnover problems with his workers - one estimate is over 370% annual turnover. One way to help prevent turnover is to pay more, and it solved the problem. (Even so, the base pay was still actually $2.30 and to get the extra $2.70 you had to abstain from alcohol, keep your home clean, etc.) https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/henry-ford-implements-5...
	▲	heavyset_go 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Read Citigroup's plutonomy paper: https://www.sourcewatch.org/images/b/bc/CITIGROUP-MARCH-5-20... The strategy for institutional investors is to invest in servicing the needs of the already rich, at the expense of investing in companies that serve working people. The former is much more profitable than the latter, and the latter is becoming less profitable over time.

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SonOfKyuss 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No the assumption behind the statement and many others on this topic is not AI is more productive than Human + AI, it’s that 9 (or 8 or 6) humans + AI is more productive than 10 humans. No one is suggesting getting rid of all workers, but many are saying they can get rid of a significant percentage of them. It remains to be seen if that ends up being true but it is fundamentally different from what you are describing