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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

I'm interested in how you can tell an industry-wide job displacement story about AI, where AI isn't actually doing the job, that isn't a just-so story.

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If you wanted to tell such a story, you’d have to find examples of companies spending bazillions on new AI tooling, but failing to hit their top level OKRs. I suspect there will be at least a few of these by the end of 2026 - even a great technology can seem like an abacus in the hands of a disorganized and slow moving org.

The story only matters if it produces an industry-wide displacement in jobs. Failed billion-dollar IT projects are not a new thing, and don't disrupt the entire labor market.

To be clear: I'm not claiming that AI rollouts won't be billion-dollar failed IT projects! They very well could be. But if that's the case, they aren't going to disrupt the labor market.

Again: you have to pick a lane with the pessimism. Both lanes are valid. I buy neither of them. But recognize a coherent argument when I see one. This, however, isn't one.

There's a coherent story that straddles both lanes, by assuming that the human economy is in some weird place where the vast majority of humans don't create real economic value and mostly get employment through inertia and custom, and that AI, despite being worthless, provides an excuse for employers to break through taboos and traditions and eliminate all those jobs. Quite a stretch, but it's coherent at least.

I agree. There will be some companies that cannot effectively use AI to slash headcount and become more efficient. There will be those who cut too deep and are burned by it. There will be those who spend millions on AI consultants who don’t move the needle, custom LLM pet projects that get pursued, companies that crash and burn due to vibe coding, companies with 5 employees that are only possible because of vibe coding, etc.

Expecting there to be one result from a new technology is incredibly naïve. There are scores of still existing companies today who fumbled the internet, cloud computing, social media, smartphones, etc. even though all of those technologies have proven to be transformative in the aggregate.

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