"An AI Job Apocalypse?" – Goldman Sachs Report [pdf]

aanet

> Rapid improvements in AI capabilities and growing corporate adoption have led to predictions that the technology could lead to large-scale job losses before the end of the decade. So, just how concerned should we be about an AI “job apocalypse”? MIT’s Daron Acemoglu and Neil Thompson and GS’ Joseph Briggs generally agree that these predictions likely won’t come to pass, though they differ on the scale of disruption ahead. Briggs expects significant labor displacement but only temporarily as new jobs eventually emerge. Thompson is less convinced about large-scale job displacement and takes comfort in the ability to anticipate changes, seeing AI as a rising tide rather than a crashing wave for labor. And Acemoglu expects a small net negative impact on labor over the next five years, with possible larger losses over the longer term if investment remains focused on replacing rather than complementing workers. Amid this debate, we find that AI’s impact on corporate labor needs—and earnings—remains too uncertain for markets to reward (for now). A GS report - including discussions with MIT labor economists DAren Acemoglu (Nobel), Neil Thompson

Mistletoe

I tried to find a GS report from the top of the 2000 tech bubble but couldn't find one. I wonder what it would have said?

bayarearefugee

> Key to this view is our expectation that over the long run AI will create many new jobs even as it destroys existing ones. Still waiting for anyone with this viewpoint to offer a single educated guess at what any of these created jobs might look like even in very broad terms. All I ever see is basically a religious belief that surely something will arise. I get that previous automation waves have lead to new jobs in the past, but automating knowledge and intelligence is just fundamentally a different thing than anything we have automated in the past and what exactly stops AI from taking those new jobs too as soon as the need for them is recognized?

operatingthetan

Why are AI boosters turning around and trying to suggest AI now won't take our jobs? Or less jobs than previously stated? Meanwhile Meta has so much AI compute that they don't know what to do with, and they are ready to lease it out. And corporations suddenly want token austerity across the board. OpenAI is delaying their IPO until "next year." Something is starting to give.

harimau777

The thing that I never hear discussed is how long it will take these "new jobs" to materialize and how much they will pay.

nondevmendel

A few points: 1. As a somewhat self-denying but admittedly obvious "tech bro", I can't help but cringe at some of the tech bro podcasts claiming that AI is not going to mass replace jobs. After a previous round of layoffs at my company due to financial constraints. We've managed to not just replace the bulk of our developers withy Claude, but seriously outperform them and build some serious, real-world applications in very short order. These were applications that touch highly sensitive databases across multiple departments in our company. I cannot see where all these engineering jobs are going to go if our small company was able to replace our engineering team with one 4X smaller and get better output. 2. These same podcasters claim that "this is why people should be in trades and doing skilled labor, such as electricians and plumbers." We have to be fools to think that AI + robotics is not going to replace all this very shortly. For the longest time I said it would be about ten years, now, but seeing how my unbogglingly fast Claude got so good (i.e., just compared to last year), I find it hard to imagine that this would be less than three years out. I personally think that these "tech-elite" podcasters are trying to brand a message so that people won't be afraid of AI, but that none of them believe this message themselves. 3. For a tech-first forum/news site, I'm shocked by how anti-AI the sentiment seems to be here. I too am concerned for jobs, but that doesn't change how bullish and excited I am about what I am currently able to build and will be able to build going forward using AI. You may call that selfish, and I won't disagree, but I think it's also intrinsically tech-first, to have this viewpoint. I have no issue with somebody not being tech-first but complaining on Hacker News about a tech-first reality. It sounds disingenuous to me.

newsomix9xl

Ai equals job loss has always been a lie except for very special niche jobs e.g. illustrator. AI can't even do ASCII diagrams. AI is our friend, but maybe CEOs who want superbonuses and obscene wages and pay themselves in stock so they have to play stock price games: not our friend.