• Jim Kavanaugh, CEO of World Wide Technology, told CNBC that people are “too smart” to accept artificial intelligence won’t alter their work environment.

  • Business leaders shouldn’t “BS” employees about the impact of AI on jobs, Kavanaugh said, adding that they should be as transparent and honest as possible.

  • Kavanaugh, who has a net worth of $7 billion, stressed that overall he’s an optimist when it comes to AI and its ability to improve productivity.

  • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    37
    ·
    2 months ago

    Summary:

    Tech bro billionaire thinks no one knows what the impact of ai will be on the market but also that the impact will be huge for employees and that everyone should learn ai.

    Conclusion: Tech bro billionaire invested in ai and has realized that there is barely any real money to be made as of right now, to cope with his apparent bad judgement, he doubles down on the idea that ai soon be worth it. To continue his plan, he needs more funding and he doesn’t want to double down hard enough to do it all himself. So to find new investors, he sings the praise of ai and promises a great future, as the present looks… Well… Bad.

    • ladicius@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      I work with a lot of software where ai is part of the tool set, and in a lot of use cases it comes in pretty handy and really can save time. I think ai really will kill some jobs but mostly in undesirable industries, call center and the likes, and it will deteriorate quality in customer service even more. (That’s the point where I always lol.)

      Besides that: I’m quite sure that every job that gets lost due to ai will be reinstated by “demographic demand” - western nations will run out of workers sooner than they think (it’s already happening), and in a few years companies will not hire but buy workers.

      Simply wait for it, and then choose the job of your likings.

        • ladicius@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          “Learn to script” will indeed become more common (coincidentally I had a meeting today about scripting in a DMS).

          Can’t tell about numbers as that is far from my expertise.

            • V.K. Farfalle 🦋 (He/Him)@zirk.us
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              2 months ago

              @ZDL @ladicius

              It’s important for everyone to understand this. Thank you for spelling it out so clearly.

              At the same time, it’s also important for everyone to understand that the Luddites lost. They lost every single war over every single technology they ever tried to protect their lives and livelihoods from. They always have, and they always will.

              If we are going to SURVIVE, our survival strategy can’t rely on either ‘replacing’ jobs OR preventing disruptive technology from destroying them.

                • V.K. Farfalle 🦋 (He/Him)@zirk.us
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  @ZDL

                  I spoke too broadly; I apologize.

                  I didn’t mean to say that they didn’t make a lasting positive impact on labor and consumer rights.

                  All I meant to say was that the technologies they opposed still exist and are now indispensable and (mostly) positive features of the industrial economy.

                  The victories you describe are positive and massive; my argument is that victories like those are possible and desirable (and necessary!) while winning a Butlerian Jihad is none of those things.

            • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              2 months ago

              That specific field is lost. “There aren’t enough jobs” has never been more than a short term issue, while the technological progress idiots complain about is constantly moving the standard of living massively forward.

              This iteration of “AI” won’t replace workers long term because it doesn’t work. But when we get to the point where it actually can, the standard of living will, once again, be massively better across the board as a direct result of the ability to do more work with less effort.

  • EnderMB@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    2 months ago

    I work in AI (cue boos).

    I trust a tech CEO to tell me the truth about the future of AI as much as I’d trust Harold Shipman to care for my elderly relatives.

    Ask most people in the industry, the ones with PhD’s in ML/DS, and the engineers that build the infrastructure around this stuff, and you’ll likely hear that while it’s very cool, what we’ll likely see from it is a huge improvement in productivity tooling and word processing. It’ll make workers’ lives easier.

    IMO, it won’t take away any jobs any time soon. Most of the CEO’s that say it’s saved millions of hours of their engineers are, bluntly, liars. Those that say that software engineering will disappear because LLM’s will get better are either really fucking stupid, liars that are pandering to shareholders, or a mix of the two.

    Where I’ll say that this person is right is that it’ll improve productivity, naturally because the tools help the workers.