On that topic, the most successes we have seen come from the teams that are intellectually curious and drive their own use cases and adoption. That's where the AI adoption is driving real improvements vs folks waiting to be handed something. It tends to start small but then builds momentum as the team's understanding grows and then they start building on initial smaller successes. Now I get being handcuffed by lack of resources and bad strategy there, but I see a lot of teams bog down waiting on bigger complex ideas or to be handed a strategy. Our approach has been to just get started somewhere - simple wins lead to more understanding of how to leverage it which leads to stacking wins together and it's really growing already. But it takes those closest to the work to really make it happen.

I think most people understandably somewhat resent being dehumanized to numbers in a database and being told they are no longer valuable enough to keep. That's why I believe that most upper management at major businesses businesses really do lean towards the psychopathic spectrum of personality type, almost out of necessity. That's the reality of putting the business first above all else. If it fails, nobody has a job there.

At some level labor is just another resource or input and expense to be managed. But yes, that labor is all human beings. In the end, both parties agree to a trade of wage for labor and eventually one party or the other doesn't need the relationship and breaks it off.

It's just a reality that sometimes a business has to lose even good and top performing employees to compete in the economy at times.

I just don't like it when they are misleading or deceptive about it. To me that borders on giving fraudulent indicators to investors

infinity ag said:

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MouthBQ98 said:

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The "AI" RIF's are happening. My employer has one in the works. I think they are being done in anticipation of future AI efficiency that has not yet materialized because why not claim the expense savings sooner rather than later and gamble on AI to come through before the reduced workforce gets overwhelmed.

I think also there is competitive action across markets going on to broadcast "AI savings" to potential investors. If you can't show you are able to dump headcount and related expenses then your stock looks less futureproof in the short term. There is literally a competition in the market to signal the most labor reduction potential and therefore the most AI related return potential. It is now a defensive reaction to other businesses doing the same thing.

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Yes, they are and you are 100% spot-on.
But they are just an example of poor leadership at the top. I follow this guy on LI, see what he said about Meta (where he worked) and how they fired people before developing a good replacement so they could claim a win for AI.

---

Hold up,
wait a minute.

You are following a CEO? And you agree with what this Founder/CEO has to say?!?!

"You won't be replaced by AI. You'll be replaced by someone who knows how to use AI." Many companies are more interested in moving faster than saving money. Is that wishful thinking?

Vestal_Flame said:

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I am '99, and I studied electrical engineering. I've been involved in the AI/ML market for a little more than 15 years.

It's a tool. That's all. When Verilog redefined VLSI design, it was the same sort of thing. For a few people, it was also the end of their world.

Large numbers of people are newly freaked out, today, for one simple reason. Math has caught them. 15 years ago, when the AI/ML applications were restricted (by available compute capacity) to solving problems that were cleanly expressed in mathematical nomenclature (and therefore incomprehensible to laymen), nobody cared. Now that there is enough compute power to work with messy reality of natural language datasets, people are frightened by the fact that the math is touching the realm that they thought had made them special.

People are freaked out because they are confronted by the probabilistic semi-determinism of what they had previously considered to be their very special uniqueness. It happens every time.

---

What do you mean by "math is touching them"?
The NLP layer abstracts away all the math happening behind the scenes.

Exactly. People can't see the math, and people think that, when the LLM responds, they are seeing magic. The math is touching them, but they don't understand that it's 'just math.' People are afraid of magic.

agsquirrel97 said:

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infinity ag said:

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MouthBQ98 said:

---

The "AI" RIF's are happening. My employer has one in the works. I think they are being done in anticipation of future AI efficiency that has not yet materialized because why not claim the expense savings sooner rather than later and gamble on AI to come through before the reduced workforce gets overwhelmed.

I think also there is competitive action across markets going on to broadcast "AI savings" to potential investors. If you can't show you are able to dump headcount and related expenses then your stock looks less futureproof in the short term. There is literally a competition in the market to signal the most labor reduction potential and therefore the most AI related return potential. It is now a defensive reaction to other businesses doing the same thing.

---

Yes, they are and you are 100% spot-on.
But they are just an example of poor leadership at the top. I follow this guy on LI, see what he said about Meta (where he worked) and how they fired people before developing a good replacement so they could claim a win for AI.

---

Hold up,
wait a minute.

You are following a CEO? And you agree with what this Founder/CEO has to say?!?!

---

Yes, I follow CEOs. Good and bad ones. The good ones to learn from, and the bad ones to laugh at. That way I get both sides of the picture and can make my own decision and develop my own view point. That is why I am immune from the groupthink that is so rampant on this board with the "CEO is God" type of deification.

This guy was most recently an engineering manager at Meta. I think he was CEO of his own company some time ago, not sure. It's not a big deal, I can also form an LLC and call myself CEO.

infinity ag said:

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Vestal_Flame said:

---

I am '99, and I studied electrical engineering. I've been involved in the AI/ML market for a little more than 15 years.

It's a tool. That's all. When Verilog redefined VLSI design, it was the same sort of thing. For a few people, it was also the end of their world.

Large numbers of people are newly freaked out, today, for one simple reason. Math has caught them. 15 years ago, when the AI/ML applications were restricted (by available compute capacity) to solving problems that were cleanly expressed in mathematical nomenclature (and therefore incomprehensible to laymen), nobody cared. Now that there is enough compute power to work with messy reality of natural language datasets, people are frightened by the fact that the math is touching the realm that they thought had made them special.

People are freaked out because they are confronted by the probabilistic semi-determinism of what they had previously considered to be their very special uniqueness. It happens every time.

---

What do you mean by "math is touching them"?
The NLP layer abstracts away all the math happening behind the scenes.

---

He's saying people thought they were too smart to be impacted by AI, but the compute power has caught up with them and they are freaking out this is a true statement.

JB99 said:

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infinity ag said:

---

Vestal_Flame said:

---

I am '99, and I studied electrical engineering. I've been involved in the AI/ML market for a little more than 15 years.

It's a tool. That's all. When Verilog redefined VLSI design, it was the same sort of thing. For a few people, it was also the end of their world.

Large numbers of people are newly freaked out, today, for one simple reason. Math has caught them. 15 years ago, when the AI/ML applications were restricted (by available compute capacity) to solving problems that were cleanly expressed in mathematical nomenclature (and therefore incomprehensible to laymen), nobody cared. Now that there is enough compute power to work with messy reality of natural language datasets, people are frightened by the fact that the math is touching the realm that they thought had made them special.

People are freaked out because they are confronted by the probabilistic semi-determinism of what they had previously considered to be their very special uniqueness. It happens every time.

---

What do you mean by "math is touching them"?
The NLP layer abstracts away all the math happening behind the scenes.

---

He's saying people thought they were too smart to be impacted by AI, but the compute power has caught up with them and they are freaking out this is a true statement.

---

Okay got it.

Yes I remember during my undergrad days (mid 90s), AI was offered as an elective and the talk was that "AI is dead". But reality is it wasn't dead as a concept, it was only waiting for compute to catch up. Now it is alive again.