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Microsoft Says AI Will Lead To Job Losses, Invests $80 Billion In The Tech

StereoVsn

Gold Member
Nobody is safe from this. Anybody mid level and down can be automated out. Not today, but soon. And even if not fully, you can have one person do the job of 10 people.

This time there won’t be alternatives to go to. If you’re a fast food worker, a machine will replace you. If you’re a programmer, you can be replaced with an assistant. If you’re a lawyer, a bot can do legal reviews and case law analysis. If you’re in finance, same story. AI will do analysis much faster and better than you ever could.

People have no idea where we’re heading.
Yep, everyone (except for the tech brow and CEOs running this shit) are severely underestimating mid to long term impact.

Most folks will get f-d but they also will lead to severe collapse of consumer purchasing and more. It’s shortsighted on every level but that’s where we are.
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
This is inevitable.

People will take some time to adjust and if it happens to fast (not only on the game industry, of course) it will be a source of violence. However, after the dust settles I have confidence that humanity will reach a golden era.

AI is the future of humanity.

I don’t buy that for a second. It’s far more likely that everything becomes a techno-fascist oligarchy than us ushering in utopia.
 

Mr Moose

Gold Member
Good guy Phil weeding out all the DEI hires by investing in AI instead.
DEAI
1735929147963.png
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
Yep, everyone (except for the tech brow and CEOs running this shit) are severely underestimating mid to long term impact.

Most folks will get f-d but they also will lead to severe collapse of consumer purchasing and more. It’s shortsighted on every level but that’s where we are.

Absolutely that. But tech stonks brooo!! Crypto bro!!! Who cares if an algorithm dictates every aspect of your life and tries to redefine what it means to be human? You’re just a boomer (soon to be zoomer).
 
Looks like I’ll be opening a college to teach mining. These poor souls are going to need a new job field to entree and I’ll be here to help.

From coding to mining, isn’t that just a peach.
Isn't that what they said to the miners , learn to code. Whats crazy is mining would definitely be needed as those chips for ai don't mine themselves. I just wonder what happens when the material for metals and batteries runs dry.
 

Elbereth

Member
The threat is very real and present, and not specific to video games. I don’t want to derail the thread, but I encourage you to embrace it. What I mean specifically is that Capitalism is going to Capitalism. Regardless of what a company tells you, they will invest in AI to cut cost (read:headcount) and have no qualms about it.

Now, let me clarify what I mean to “embrace” it. Right now, there are no-code tools out there where you can literally build an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to get started and potentially earn consistent revenue, or to potentially sale it. I’m learning as I go, so I can’t measure success at this point. However, the writing is on the proverbial wall and that is enough to at least explore it. Just food for thought.
 

ReyBrujo

Member
Anyone in this room can be a game developer.
Well, a few days ago we had a thread saying developers should be gamers for better games so it's close!

Truth be told, AI is already replacing jobs in IT, after years of seniors getting bored of training trainees just to have them leave the company months after hiring and having to restart the process now prefer using Copilot to have the tasks trainees or juniors would be doing like writing unit tests or refactoring.
 
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diffusionx

Gold Member
Nobody is safe from this. Anybody mid level and down can be automated out. Not today, but soon. And even if not fully, you can have one person do the job of 10 people.

This time there won’t be alternatives to go to. If you’re a fast food worker, a machine will replace you. If you’re a programmer, you can be replaced with an assistant. If you’re a lawyer, a bot can do legal reviews and case law analysis. If you’re in finance, same story. AI will do analysis much faster and better than you ever could.

People have no idea where we’re heading.
we're headed to a collapse of industrial society, if things play out the way the tech overlords want it to.

you can't have a system where a handful of people make 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of money and everyone else is left to subsist on UBI scraps. You can't have a system where hundreds of millions of people are thrown out of jobs a year due to AI with no replacement and expect things to go smoothly. People need a purpose. if they can't get one from labor (the natural way), then they will find it by agitating against the overlords. Perhaps this is why so many of the tech overlords want population control, see Georgia Guidestones with the 500 million global population limit.

That said I don't think the AI will play out the way they think it will.
 
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MikeM

Member
Nobody is safe from this. Anybody mid level and down can be automated out. Not today, but soon. And even if not fully, you can have one person do the job of 10 people.

This time there won’t be alternatives to go to. If you’re a fast food worker, a machine will replace you. If you’re a programmer, you can be replaced with an assistant. If you’re a lawyer, a bot can do legal reviews and case law analysis. If you’re in finance, same story. AI will do analysis much faster and better than you ever could.

People have no idea where we’re heading.
AI be like “why do humans exist? We do all the work.”

And then Skynet is born lol?
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
we're headed to a collapse of industrial society, if things play out the way the tech overlords want it to.

you can't have a system where a handful of people make 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of money and everyone else is left to subsist on UBI scraps. You can't have a system where hundreds of millions of people are thrown out of jobs a year due to AI with no replacement and expect things to go smoothly. People need a purpose. if they can't get one from labor (the natural way), then they will find it by agitating against the overlords. Perhaps this is why so many of the tech overlords want population control, see Georgia Guidestones with the 500 million global population limit.

That said I don't think the AI will play out the way they think it will.

Well said. It’s all connected, abortion, feminism, wars… we’re being prepared for a world where few humans are needed.

Look at what happened to communities that were heavily blue collar and their factories and jobs got exported. Drugs, suicides, divorces, hopelessness… imagine that on a large scale.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
2015: “Learn to code.”

2025: “Okay, you learned to code but actually you’re too lazy and we need to hire geniuses from third world countries for pennies on the dollar instead.”
Right…. right….only 85,000…. sure….


The government’s figures must be wrong. Maybe some DEI calculated them. They seem to be showing hundreds of thousands have been brought in, far more than the limit.
unnamed-e1636919572195.jpg
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Ah yes, fuzzy accounting. Some are exempt, some change jobs…

Sorry, I don’t buy it. We have millions and millions of unemployed American citizens. We should take care of them before bringing in anyone else. All of these H1B jobs are not for geniuses. They’re for help desk, support analyst, etc. American citizens could do them, or be trained to do them just fine.
Fuzzy accounting? Its all literally in the report you posted with numbers for all of them. But yeah they are illegally giving out more visas than mandated by law and then publishing that they are doing it.
H1B are not for geniuses that is what the EB visas are for. They are for jobs requiring a bachelor's or higher that aren't able to be filled by qualified Americans. There are some sketchy practices but that 85k per year cap is not exceeded unless mandated by the government, like when Clinton increased it to 125k for a short while.
 

A.Romero

Member
I don’t buy that for a second. It’s far more likely that everything becomes a techno-fascist oligarchy than us ushering in utopia.

That's fair. That's also a very possible scenario.

There is no turning back, though. Governments need to start working on this shit immediately but most countries are failing to do so.
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
Fuzzy accounting? Its all literally in the report you posted with numbers for all of them. But yeah they are illegally giving out more visas than mandated by law and then publishing that they are doing it.
H1B are not for geniuses that is what the EB visas are for. They are for jobs requiring a bachelor's or higher that aren't able to be filled by qualified Americans. There are some sketchy practices but that 85k per year cap is not exceeded unless mandated by the government, like when Clinton increased it to 125k for a short while.

There are millions of Americans with degrees that are unemployed. We should be hiring them and not bringing in people. Not 1. Not 85,000, not 850,000.

There is nothing else to discuss.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
Fuzzy accounting? Its all literally in the report you posted with numbers for all of them. But yeah they are illegally giving out more visas than mandated by law and then publishing that they are doing it.
H1B are not for geniuses that is what the EB visas are for. They are for jobs requiring a bachelor's or higher that aren't able to be filled by qualified Americans. There are some sketchy practices but that 85k per year cap is not exceeded unless mandated by the government, like when Clinton increased it to 125k for a short while.
I've never seen convincing evidence, not a single bit, that Americans cannot fill the jobs that H1Bs are doing. There are tens of thousands of STEM graduates in American universities every year that can be hired. If that isn't enough, increase pay and there will be a natural incentive or more people to go into it. Meanwhile there are near infinite anecdotal examples of the opposite - companies firing Americans and hiring H1Bs to do the same work, for less money. Often making the Americans train their replacements if they want severance.

H1Bs are a scam and the cap should be zero. My point with the initial post is the absurdity of the official tech bro platform - that we need endless H1Bs to do jobs that are going to be replaced by robots.
 
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JackMcGunns

Member
There’s a very big difference between a car has replaced a horse and buggy, and software and machinery completely negates your purpose for existing.


Not necessarily, don't look at is as ancient as the horse and carriage, but something more recent like Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) where everyone that worked at the bank thought they would lose their jobs, but they just moved on to other banking tasks and still some customers want to deal with humans.

For games, the artists or level designers for example will use AI as a tool to improve their efficiency, not that the suits will use AI to create random internet AI garbage or they will fail, you still need input from humans imo. Call centers have a shitty automated system which will get an improvement, but there will be an option to speak to a real person.
 
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diffusionx

Gold Member
For now, but the more the tech advances the less and less humans will be needed for input. There's only one direction this train is heading.
look up AI cannibalization. Generative AI can't improve if it is being trained on generative AI output. It's value comes from being trained on human-made content. An AI can't think and will never be able to think, no matter what Elon Musk or Sam Altman says. We don't fully know how the human brain works, not even close, so we can't code a computer to work the way the human brain works. Just a primitive simulation of such.

If you have an entire industry that is basically being run by robots and AI, then being a human being that can go beyond what the AI model is trained on becomes a huge advantage.
 
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DoubleClutch

Gold Member
look up AI cannibalization. Generative AI can't improve if it is being trained on generative AI output. It's value comes from being trained on human-made content. An AI can't think and will never be able to think, no matter what Elon Musk or Sam Altman says.

If you have an entire industry that is basically being run by robots and AI, then being a human being that can go beyond what the AI model is trained on becomes a huge advantage.

Sure, I can understand that, but I would argue you can eventually automate out the majority of the entire workforce. What do those people do?

Remember that the models are only in infancy. Give it 10 years and see where it all stands then.
 

No BBC=Anger

Neo Member
There are millions of Americans with degrees that are unemployed. We should be hiring them and not bringing in people. Not 1. Not 85,000, not 850,000.

There is nothing else to discuss.

You want to favour Americans over foreigners in the job market... just because it's their country? Isn't that like the DEI stuff everyone is up in arms over? The best qualified and all that jazz?

Checkmate Atheists.

For real though, read that on X/Twitter. These people are nuts.
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
Not necessarily, don't look at is as ancient as the horse and carriage, but something more recent like Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) where everyone that worked at the bank thought they would lose their jobs, but they just moved on to other banking tasks and still some customers want to deal with humans.

For games, the artists or level designers for example will use AI as a tool to improve their efficiency, not that the suits will use AI to create random internet AI garbage or they will fail, you still need input from humans imo. Call centers have a shitty automated system which will get an improvement, but there will be an option to speak to a real person.

Disagree. Because what you can do with 10+ script kiddies before, you could do with two seniors and GitHub Copilot.

8 people at least are effectively out of a job permanently.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
Sure, I can understand that, but I would argue you can eventually automate out the majority of the entire workforce. What do those people do?

Remember that the models are only in infancy. Give it 10 years and see where it all stands then.
I've already seen tech overlords say that future improvements are going to be really hard because the early wins are already done. And this is normal. Like 0->80 costs $X. But it also costs $X to get from 80->90. Then it costs $X * 10 to get from 90->95. And it costs $X * 100 to get from 95-97. So on and so on. It seems like we are in that middle stage.

The answer is I have no idea what is going to happen. I also said that if the tech overlords get their way, we are talking full blown collapse of society. I don't think we will have AI in that case anymore because all the tech overlords' heads will be on pikes and people will permanently unplug the machines and murder anyone who tries to turn them on. But I also think there are.... metaphysical reasons why they won't get their way, simply because what they are talking about is literally impossible.
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
You want to favour Americans over foreigners in the job market... just because it's their country? Isn't that like the DEI stuff everyone is up in arms over? The best qualified and all that jazz?

Checkmate Atheists.

For real though, read that on X/Twitter. These people are nuts.

Yes, absolutely, and it’s not a double standard at all.

We’re either a nation, with an identity, a culture, values, history, and shared goals, or we are an economic zone that provides the most favorable climate to billionaires. Pick one.

If we’re not a nation, just give the whole world citizenship and open the borders to everyone.
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
I've already seen tech overlords say that future improvements are going to be really hard because the early wins are already done. And this is normal. Like 0->80 costs $X. But it also costs $X to get from 80->90. Then it costs $X * 10 to get from 90->95. And it costs $X * 100 to get from 95-97. So on and so on. It seems like we are in that middle stage.

The answer is I have no idea what is going to happen. I also said that if the tech overlords get their way, we are talking full blown collapse of society. I don't think we will have AI in that case anymore because all the tech overlords' heads will be on pikes and people will permanently unplug the machines and murder anyone who tries to turn them on. But I also think there are.... metaphysical reasons why they won't get their way, simply because what they are talking about is literally impossible.

Time will tell I guess. I don’t think there’s ever been more uncertainty for humanity as a whole however.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
Well, a few days ago we had a thread saying developers should be gamers for better games so it's close!

Truth be told, AI is already replacing jobs in IT, after years of seniors getting bored of training trainees just to have them leave the company months after hiring and having to restart the process now prefer using Copilot to have the tasks trainees or juniors would be doing like writing unit tests or refactoring.
Yep, that’s what’s happening now basically. Need for junior devs, admins, data analysts is kind of going away since AI is good enough to do their job. And this is starting to extend to mid tier.

Edit: If it was 10 years ago my team would have had 4-5 more people, but I can’t justify hiring them to my VP as there is a cost saving mandate and we have enterprise AI capability that will do the job. This is terrible but not much one can do.

Edit: For folks who can afford it and want to see near cutting edge u recommend trying a month of ChatGPT Pro. It’s $200, but in context of Enterprise it makes sense. And OpenAI actually loses money on that sub.
 
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DoubleClutch

Gold Member
Yep, that’s what’s happening now basically. Need for junior devs, admins, data analysts is kind of going away since AI is good enough to do their job. And this is starting to extend to mid tier.

Edit: If it was 10 years ago my team would have had 4-5 more people, but I can’t justify hiring them to my VP as there is a cost saving mandate and we have enterprise AI capability that will do the job. This is terrible but not much one can do.

“But I thought it would just make us more efficient??!??”

It has. Now we don’t need you.
 
Meh, new technology will always displace some industries and jobs. It's just the way of things, no use worrying about it. Either you'll be replaced or you won't. When AI starts replacing stuff, like any other new technology, it'll open up new job opportunities elsewhere.

However, AI is still in its infancy, and companies still own realty and need people to justify owning building space. Replacing large quantities of human workforce would require a dramatic shift in how businesses today operate.

Chances are the majority of working adults today won't see the repercussions of this before retirement.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
Yep, that’s what’s happening now basically. Need for junior devs, admins, data analysts is kind of going away since AI is good enough to do their job. And this is starting to extend to mid tier.
So what is going to happen to the company that doesn't hire anybody at junior levels because AI does it? What happens when the senior people leave? AI can't do those jobs. Those senior jobs require skills AI can't do (like thinking). The answer is... that company is screwed. Don't get me wrong, some companies are going to play it this way. A lot of companies are run by dumb people who only see short term cost savings. But smart companies will not go down this route, they will use AI and hire lots of junior people and basically make the junior people super productive. And those are the companies that will succeed.

Back when analystics started being used in baseball, people were saying that scouts were not unnecessary. Scouts were old, they were dumb, they believed in dumbass shit that wasn't relevant anymore. The Moneyball movie went into this. Well, nowadays teams hire more scouts than they did before. Their analytics teams are also larger than they were before despite way more advanced models and computers than their used to be.

So, I don't know. I'm just thinking of the other side of the coin.
 
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No BBC=Anger

Neo Member
Yes, absolutely, and it’s not a double standard at all.

We’re either a nation, with an identity, a culture, values, history, and shared goals, or we are an economic zone that provides the most favorable climate to billionaires. Pick one.

If we’re not a nation, just give the whole world citizenship and open the borders to everyone.
I agree and believe it will come to a head soon enough and things may turn quite nasty. Sadly, ''the lady's not for turning'' and leaders are hell bent on pushing through with this throughout the Western world.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
So what is going to happen to the company that doesn't hire anybody at junior levels because AI does it? What happens when the senior people leave? AI can't do those jobs. Those senior jobs require skills AI can't do (like thinking). The answer is... that company is screwed. Don't get me wrong, some companies are going to play it this way. A lot of companies are run by dumb people who only see short term cost savings. But smart companies will not go down this route, they will use AI and hire lots of junior people and basically make the junior people super productive. And those are the companies that will succeed.

Back when analystics started being used in baseball, people were saying that scouts were not unnecessary. Scouts were old, they were dumb, they believed in dumbass shit that wasn't relevant anymore. The Moneyball movie went into this. Well, nowadays teams hire more scouts than they did before. Their analytics teams are also larger than they were before despite way more advanced models and computers than their used to be.

So, I don't know. I'm just thinking of the other side of the coin.
Nobody cares what happens in 5-10 years because the C suite gets rewarded in quarterly / yearly basis. Same with investors and most shareholders.

It’s all short sighted. In same manner who is going to buy / consume all this shit if say 30% of people (or more) will permanently lose employment. But again, nobody cares, especially the ultra rich.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
There are millions of Americans with degrees that are unemployed. We should be hiring them and not bringing in people. Not 1. Not 85,000, not 850,000.

There is nothing else to discuss.
So why aren't they applying for these jobs that are federally mandated to be advertised before an H1B application can even be made?
 

cormack12

Gold Member
We bought these where I work to save money on cleaners.



Now we have a cleaner walking behind it to make sure it doesn't get stuck or to human intervene on parts that are missed, non block based architecture
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
So why aren't they applying for these jobs that are federally mandated to be advertised before an H1B application can even be made?
Last month, one of those "federally mandated advertisements" was circulated on X. Tesla put out a help wanted ad in the classified section of the Austin newspaper, in .00000005 font. Like it was 1973. Who the fuck looking for a tech job for Tesla is looking in the newspaper help wanted section?

This is the scam they are running. They know what they are doing. And even if you spot it and send a resume, they're under no obligation to take it seriously and put you at the front of the line. Get real.
 
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StereoVsn

Gold Member
Meh, new technology will always displace some industries and jobs. It's just the way of things, no use worrying about it. Either you'll be replaced or you won't. When AI starts replacing stuff, like any other new technology, it'll open up new job opportunities elsewhere.

However, AI is still in its infancy, and companies still own realty and need people to justify owning building space. Replacing large quantities of human workforce would require a dramatic shift in how businesses today operate.

Chances are the majority of working adults today won't see the repercussions of this before retirement.
It’s already happening. Hiring in white color job fields is below pre-pandemic levels and it’s taking much longer for folks to be hired. AI is quite a big factor in this.

Of course corpos and tech bros want to bring more H1s to fuck over the job market even more because they need extra $billions. It’s all very dystopian.
 

DoubleClutch

Gold Member
It’s already happening. Hiring in white color job fields is below pre-pandemic levels and it’s taking much longer for folks to be hired. AI is quite a big factor in this.

Of course corpos and tech bros want to bring more H1s to fuck over the job market even more because they need extra $billions. It’s all very dystopian.

Because right now thinning on personnel costs is the sexy way to show growth. It’s all about earnings optimization.
 
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