AI is not responsible for anything at the moment, except making existing senior developers reasonably more efficient for sleeve of tasks, but not the tasks that take the most time.

Saying "we don't need as many staff because AI" is an oft-repeated trope because it sounds like a reasonable excuse to fire people. It's nearly impossible to back up the claim with any measurable method, and investors will look aside on the mismanagement and/or ridiculously over-engineered/over-complicated custom tech stacks companies run if they say "AI" anywhere in their reports.

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HDBaseT an hour ago | parent | next [-]

There is plenty of companies already firing people due because of AI, or at least, that's why they proclaim.

There is also plenty of freelance / artistry type people who would of had work before (i.e creating Halloween, mothers day, Easter, etc) promotional material which is now just outsourced to AI. You see some of the biggest companies on Earth posting AI stuff for special event, etc.

Most aren't at the stage of using full AI "art" for advertisements (except maybe Coke) but some of these companies would already have full time artists, which they've bypassed. Their jobs are not forever and eventually will get killed.

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esalman an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

AI is absolutely directly responsible. Managers are literally asking whether people need AI credits or interns over summer. Most people are taking credits, and internships are getting cancelled left and right.

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tetromino_ an hour ago | parent [-]

> Managers are literally asking whether people need AI credits or interns over summer

That's a bit like asking them to choose between AI credits and a visit to the dentist. No engineer has ever hosted an intern in the hopes of improving their project's velocity; people host interns because "it's the right thing to do" for the industry, because it's psychologically satisfying for many people, and to build cred and/or experience as a mentor. And companies nudge their employees to host interns to hopefully influence potentially-valuable-in-the-future smart youngsters to come back as a year or two later as full time employees.

	▲	ElProlactin an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> And companies nudge their employees to host interns to hopefully influence potentially-valuable-in-the-future smart youngsters to come back as a year or two later as full time employees. And there's less incentive to do this when you anticipate needing fewer employees.

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marcosdumay 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Apparently there has been some AI-caused firing on companies that spent so much on AI that needed to fire people to make their short-term numbers not break. From the way people are talking, Facebook seems to be in that category.

There is probably some AI-caused firing coming soon on companies that vibe-coded so much that people abandon their products. I expect Microsoft start is on Github.

I have been repeating for months that AI hasn't caused any firing. But it doesn't seem to be technically correct anymore.

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munk-a 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

AI is absolutely responsible for executive suites dumping huge budgets that could be more productively elsewhere. There are extremely helpful tools out there but people are being too gullible when it comes to advertised ROIs and the blame inevitably falls on engineering, not management, when all the devs fail to 10x overnight.

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resident423 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

At the moment is the significant part, how long do we expect this to last now that AI is capable of generating novel ideas like solutions to Erdos conjectures?

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karlgkk an hour ago | parent [-]

Wow that sure sounds smart!

The problem, of course, is that generating a one time solution to a problem is a much easier problem space than a many-input task with human product concerns

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nilkn an hour ago | parent [-]

Synthesizing a ton of inputs to help clarify a decision or set of options is exactly one of the easiest and most powerful use cases for AI agents right now.

	▲	karlgkk 16 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I didn’t say it wasn’t :) All i said is that one type of task is easier than another