Senate Dem Report Finds Almost 100 Million Jobs Could Be Lost To AI (thehill.com) 76
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: A Senate report released (PDF) Monday says AI and automation could replace nearly 100 million jobs across various industries over the next decade. The report, conducted by Democratic staffers on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), outlines how AI and automation will impact the American economy and workforce. Sanders, the ranking member on the HELP Committee, has warned of the consequences widespread use of AI and automation can have for workers.
As part of their investigation, staffers asked ChatGPT, OpenAI's chatbot, to predict the impact of AI and automation on certain industries. Of the 20 workforces ChatGPT said would be most affected by the technological rush, 15 will see more than half of their workforces replaced by AI and automation over the next decade. The workforce most impacted will be fast food and counter employees. According to the report, more than 3 million fast food and counter workers will be replaced over the next 10 years, accounting for 89 percent of the workforce.
Other workforces that will be significantly affected include customer service representatives, laborers and freight, stock and material movers and secretaries and executive assistants -- not including legal, medical and executive positions. The report said that 83 percent, 81 percent and 80 percent of those workforces, respectively, will be replaced in the next decade. [...] Sanders, in a Fox News op-ed published Monday, doubled down on the report's findings, saying increased technological capacity risks "dehumanizing" individuals. "We do not simply need a more 'efficient' society," Sanders said. "We need a world where people live healthier, happier and more fulfilling lives."
As part of their investigation, staffers asked ChatGPT, OpenAI's chatbot, to predict the impact of AI and automation on certain industries. Of the 20 workforces ChatGPT said would be most affected by the technological rush, 15 will see more than half of their workforces replaced by AI and automation over the next decade. The workforce most impacted will be fast food and counter employees. According to the report, more than 3 million fast food and counter workers will be replaced over the next 10 years, accounting for 89 percent of the workforce.
Other workforces that will be significantly affected include customer service representatives, laborers and freight, stock and material movers and secretaries and executive assistants -- not including legal, medical and executive positions. The report said that 83 percent, 81 percent and 80 percent of those workforces, respectively, will be replaced in the next decade. [...] Sanders, in a Fox News op-ed published Monday, doubled down on the report's findings, saying increased technological capacity risks "dehumanizing" individuals. "We do not simply need a more 'efficient' society," Sanders said. "We need a world where people live healthier, happier and more fulfilling lives."
Re:just like PCs did? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. Most readers won't be ancient enough to remember stenographer pools, mechanical typewriters, and telegrams. They'll have seen video but that cannot convey lived experience. They won't have experienced the transition between manual machine tools and vastly mor capable CNC machining, but we all live in the outcomes.
Post-slop AI (which will take a while and whose improvement will not be uniform) like CNC machine tools will empower imagination like any effective tool. It will also be misused like every other tool because most of humanity are silly and cannot be otherwise.
Re:just like PCs did? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. Most readers won't be ancient enough to remember stenographer pools, mechanical typewriters, and telegrams. They'll have seen video but that cannot convey lived experience. They won't have experienced the transition between manual machine tools and vastly mor capable CNC machining, but we all live in the outcomes.
The critical difference was that those old machines, and the software that replaced them, were created to make human workers more productive. To grow company profits through increased worker output. AI is designed to increase profits by flat out replacing those workers, not making them more productive. AI is intended to kill two birds with one algorithm: create software that does human work better and faster than any human could, and then eliminate the costs of human employment.... salaries, insurance and other benefits, training, et al. That's the crucial difference, the intent to replace people, period.
Re:just like PCs did? (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. Most readers won't be ancient enough to remember stenographer pools, mechanical typewriters, and telegrams. They'll have seen video but that cannot convey lived experience. They won't have experienced the transition between manual machine tools and vastly mor capable CNC machining, but we all live in the outcomes.
The critical difference was that those old machines, and the software that replaced them, were created to make human workers more productive. To grow company profits through increased worker output. AI is designed to increase profits by flat out replacing those workers, not making them more productive. AI is intended to kill two birds with one algorithm: create software that does human work better and faster than any human could, and then eliminate the costs of human employment.... salaries, insurance and other benefits, training, et al. That's the crucial difference, the intent to replace people, period.
The owners that bought those historical equipment thought at the time that they could make their workers more efficient, but their primary objective was to simply cut costs. There is no competent owner that doesn't think this way. If that efficiency resulted in more orders and work to be done, then the workers would be kept or even more hired, but if the same amount of work continued, then the workforce could be reduced.
It will be the same with AI, robots, etc. If the amount of work remains the same, workers will be let go. If the amount of work increases, more workers will be hired, even with greater efficiency per worker.
It is interesting that the two extremes of anti-AI sentiment are diametrically opposed. For both camps, AI is to be avoided. Some think that AI is a illusory bubble and that the technology will never do anything useful. Others think that AI is inevitably all-powerful and that what we currently see with AI is the tip of the iceberg that is the singularity.
Hype? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hype? (Score:5, Insightful)
I do believe that AI will lead to significant dislocation of workers.
But the committee's asking AI to assess AI is GIGO. AI is trained to foster AI, generate additional interaction, etc. Not exactly a dispassionate assessment.
I believe AI is in the overhype part of the tech cycle, and we will see some moderating of expectations as many of these AI companies are shattered by not being able to deliver on their over-promises
"AI" (which isn't really AI, but)... is indeed being overhyped. But it's also still going to kill millions of jobs that won't be replaced by new jobs. Both things can be true at the same time. And while AI will indeed create some new jobs "caring and feeding" for AI, it'll kill off far more in other fields that will never be made up, unlike, say, when the Model T largely replaced the horse and buggy. A major reason for what we're calling AI is to replace human jobs in order for companies to save money on human expenses. It's why these companies backed AI in the first place. Shareholder Value Uber Alles.
Re: Hype? (Score:1)
You think Zuckerburg and Musk are going to share the wealth? You are funny. They will be Zillonaires and you will starve.
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They'll just use AI kill-bots.
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That's how I've lived a good life. It seemed quite fair to me to be able to support myself without having to buy a lot of machinery.
There are many occupations that don't require a big capital investment to run your own business. To be a house painter, buy a ladder and some brushes. Buy a lawnmower and cut grass for a living. Buy a vacuum, a bucket, and a mop and clean houses. The investment to be a fine
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GIGO?
Unlikely... (Score:5, Interesting)
1. AI is hallucinating
2. People will manipulate AI
So there will be millions of people needed to watch the AI and try to avoid manipulating it.
After a few spectacular failures the security cost of AI will go high and keep more people at their jobs...
Re:Unlikely... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unlikely... (Score:4, Funny)
This is a key part everyone seems to ignore, there are levers for the inner workings of AI and it will be manipulated to bend to it's benefactors "truths", look at Grok.
Offload all critical thinking to our free service. What could possibly go wrong?
Funny thing about that (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not an accident. Years ago Twitter tried to automatically moderate the Nazis on their platform. They couldn't.
The automatic Nazi moderation tools kept flagging Republican politicians.
The reason is dog whistles. A dog whistle is when you say something racist in a way that isn't immediately obvious especially to people who aren't obsessed with politics or terminally online.
The most famous example is welfare quee
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You're underestimating people's tolerance for slop.
I foresee a future where random things happen in a computer system and people just shrug, say "that's just the AI," and move on. Think Brazil--the computer says you're under arrest, so you're under arrest--but infinitely worse. This is happening now. But, it's just the cost of efficiency. Nobody is going to want to pay for "oversight" when it's cheaper to just sweep it under the rug.
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You're underestimating people's tolerance for slop.
I foresee a future where random things happen in a computer system and people just shrug, say "that's just the AI," and move on. Think Brazil--the computer says you're under arrest, so you're under arrest--but infinitely worse. This is happening now. But, it's just the cost of efficiency. Nobody is going to want to pay for "oversight" when it's cheaper to just sweep it under the rug.
Nobody will pay for oversight unless the AIs start pointing the finger at the broligarchs themselves. Then all of a sudden guardrails will become the most important thing in the universe.
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Probably on the computer side, immutable infrastructure will continue to reign supreme. Since 2015 there's been a big shift towards immutable infra/code. You can let AI fart around in lower environments but until everything passes all the tests, it won't get promoted to production (or end-users computers). You can see this in immutable package managers like nix already. Or in the Android case, it's completely locked down on the user side and only changes on major updates. Managing mutable infra is going to
If you read the report summary (Score:3, Interesting)
So all the machine learning stuff and all the crazy stuff they are doing with robotics and lider and advanced sensors and computer assisted vision and self-driving vehicles. Basically everything more complex than a modern industrial robot.
Basically it's all the stuff you can do with advanced paralyzed computing made possible by gpus and custom silicon that does what gpus do but better.
Honestly it'
Re: If you read the report summary (Score:2)
A paralyzed computer just might be able to sing some lider.
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Ubi is worthless for a variety of reasons (Score:1)
Also the billionaire class is well aware of the throngs. They have bought private islands you can't get to and they control the government so they control the military. Also they control the militarized police that we have been expanding non-stop for 50 years even though crime has been d
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India, 1947.
Or are you going to try to make the excuse that England wasn't authoritarian?
Generally, it is possible for part the periphery of collapsing empires to break off without violence, but then I guess it doesn't qualify as a revolution. When the Roman Empire collapsed and could no longer control its provinces, was England in violent revolution? When the USSR dissolved, the newly freed n
Self Check Out kiosks will lose their jobs! (Score:3)
Re: Self Check Out kiosks will lose their jobs! (Score:2)
Holding a "Homeless. Anything helps. God bless." sign. Next to a Redbox and a few starving payphones.
All those saddle maker jobs gone. (Score:1, Flamebait)
Oh the humanity. Back when cars replaced horses, all the saddle making jobs vanished! All those jobs just gone, never to return. It's so horrible that so many people are still out of work without those key saddle making jobs.
Yeah, new, different jobs instantly appeared because:
JOBS ARE NOT CREATED NOR DESTROYED
They are merely disrupted.
We live in an ocean of jobs just waiting to be filled. I want someone to build a Space Elevator. I want a dating app that actually works, rather than the incredibly crapp
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Ah yes, the "it's always happened like this so it always will" argument. I would suggest this time around AI is a bit different since it's going after a shit ton more then just a single industry's jobs.
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Of course I've pointed out how this time is in fact different. Maybe read the whole post rather than stopping after the first sentence.
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Sniff test (Score:3)
I don't think much of their methodology, either. Asking ChatGPT about the potential effects of AI/Automation doesn't mean much unless you then also examine whatever sources ChatGPT can cough up. Most committee staffers are lawyers of one sort or another; surely they've heard the cautionary tales [slashdot.org] of what happens when you use LLM outputs uncritically. One can get ChatGT to claim the sky is green, or that you (yes, you!) are the messiah, if you give it the right prompt [google.com].
Re: Sniff test (Score:2)
Congressional staffers alarmed at the impact of AI on congressional staff asks ChatGPT to do their research and extrapolates impact on staff reduction to the general population. Yep, checks out.
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You're not completely wrong about this, but a couple points to consider: 1) the US unemployment rate [stlouisfed.org] is around 4%, 2) I've been doing industrial automation for the last 25 years, and the technology gains in this industry are both incremental and expensive, and 3) automation is capital intensive, and the cost of capital has risen drastically in recent years and most of this is due to demographic factors that aren't going to change very soon.
If you decided to build a self-driving long haul trucking or last mi
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Usually reports like this are used to support some policy proposal. What's the proposal?
It's in the report:
Moving to a 32-Hour Workweek with No Loss in Pay; Today, American workers are over 400% more productive than they were in the 1940s. Yet, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages than they were decades ago. A 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay would reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life.
Sharing Corporate Profits with Workers; Large corporations should be required to distribute at least 20% of their stock to wor
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Historically Democrats are better for the economy on many fronts, rich to poor.
It's Republican media messaging that gets them their unearned impression they're better on economics but the numbers simply don't back it up. Their constant culture war barrage distractions is continuing to work apparently though.
https://www.epi.org/press/new-... [epi.org]
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Notice it's always the crazy guy who's made a dozen bad life decisions before the age of 25 that is advocating for universal basic income. That's no accident.
Not really? List of advocates of universal basic income [wikipedia.org]. I'm pretty ambivalent to UBI but again this idea that it's just lazy layabout is conservative media culture war talk, propaganda and distraction. We can't have an actual discussion because the well is poisoned from the outset.
Considering the story above this is $1T to OpenAI I could say the market itself isn't always particularly efficient at allocating capital, i mean 40% of all businesses fail in the first 3 years, it all depends on your point of
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I would say efficient market hypothesis doesn't take a lot of things into account like externalities, natural monopolies and obvious market failures (healthcare) so there is and always has been a role for the public (government) to put it's fingers on the markets to incentivize them in directions we want to go. If it didn't take tulip-investing into account that is a failure of the markets, they're not able to respond to perverse incentives. There's never been "free" markets and there never will be or sho
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I'm glad to see employee ownership in there as I work for an employee owned company and it really is great. I just really like the fact that when I do something that makes the company run better or do better financially I'm earning more money both for myself and my coworkers. It works well with capitalism (our company is small but successful) while providing workers some level of ownership to their work.
Customer service chat bots all stink (Score:2)
Right, i havent been successful at getting a customer service chatbot to do anything useful other than give up and give me to a human to get the issue resolved. Sure it can give account balance, bill due date, etc low impact stuff but how many folks call for that stuff.
Anyone else?
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COULD it? Maybe (Score:3, Interesting)
COULD AI replace 100 million jobs in the next 10 years? Perhaps. WILL it? Not very likely. AI still falls down pretty regularly. That said, it's not AI that's going to eliminate those jobs; it's management that will. The moment they THINK AI can do the job they'll get rid of those expensive pesky humans and replace them with AI. In many cases they'll learn that the AI isn't ready yet, but at that point it may be too late to re-hire the humans to come back and fix it.
But capitalism rewards lower costs, not higher payrolls, especially in publicly traded companies.
In the next 100 years, sure, I might buy that it will be ready to significantly displace workers by then.
Will there be new jobs cropping up for people to do? Hard to say, previous automation tended to replace physical effort more than mental effort and creativity. I'll grant that there may be new jobs I'm not thinking of yet, but I'm not as optimistic as people who hand-wave and say "The old telephone operators found new kinds of work."
We're probably getting closer to needing to seriously talk about universal basic income, but...how do we fund that if we have a shrinking workforce and ever consolidated wealth?
Fine, let it start with them (Score:2)
What you do has an effect (Score:2)
Not the same as previous rounds (Score:1)
100m people will have a different job (Score:2)
Do you think 100M will be in the unemployment line? Or that 100M positions that were once filled by several humans are now handled by one or two humans and some bits of software? We don't have a centrally planned economy, so it's not necessarily clear what job these people are going to do. But if there is a supply of labor willing to work, there's a capitalist willing to put them to work. At least at a price, hopefully not so low that they can't survive.
It's a bit like saying that once tractors become commo
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It's a bit like saying that once tractors become commonplace in the 20th century that a lot of field hands were put out of work. In reality, jobs were eventually found jobs for most of them.
In the meantime, I'm sure that the AI which "took their jobs" will be spending money to support the economy in their place.
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In the meantime, I'm sure that the AI which "took their jobs" will be spending money to support the economy in their place.
AI isn't a person, it's more like a business spending money on increasing productivity while (hopefully) lowering payroll costs. Certainly business spending goes up for data centers, software stacks, AI-as-a-service, and electricity. Unfortunately this kind of economic activity isn't quite as stimulating as working class paycheck is.
I'm not convinced the math actually works out for businesses in the short term, but it seems like they're going all in, especially while AI service companies offer below cost se
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Employment opportunities will change. The jobs we have today may not be needed.
We may have to invent new jobs to do, but as long as there are unmet wants and needs there will be jobs.
More Sanders clickbait (Score:2)
'100 million jobs lost'. Nonsense
FRED states June 2025 employment at 170 million. Assume linear growth and 2035 employment in current circumstances could be 190 million.
Bernie, dood, you're not claiming that half of employment will be gone, are you? Among the jobs unlikely (I should write impossible here) to be 'lost' are:
Plumbers, electricians, appliance repair, vehicle repair, restaurant servers and the cooks they deliver food from, and more.
Could AI wreak havoc among white-collar jobs? Yep. And create a
AI is eating jobs from the middle up (Score:2)
I don’t know if I agree with the analysis that AI is going to eat jobs from the bottom up.
I mean, it feels like it is, because it’s eating jobs from the bottom up of the tech industry.
But tech industry jobs, even low level jobs, are not low $$ figure jobs. And integration still costs something. I think AI is actually eating from the middle up. Where the job it displaces easily offsets the integration cost, and the AI is actually competent at the job.
I’m not saying it’ll never
We should trust this report because... (Score:2)
politicians are so good a doing well-designed and unbiased research, of course! /s