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1. Replace workers with AI.
2. Now instead of wages you pay a company for AI services.
3. Despite the likely decline in quality of the work, suppose you become dependent as a company on this service. Suppose you make it work.
4. AI is heavily subsidized by venture capital, its priced lower than the cost to provide the service to attract early adopters (and to lock companies like you in.)
5. Inevitably the AI bubble bursts, AI services jack up their prices.

How is paying rent better than wages?

in reply to myrmepropagandist

myrmepropagandist
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myrmepropagandist
• •
I can understand the urge to cut the cost of wages. Wages are the greatest expense for most companies. But, they have to know it's not gonna "get cheaper" it will get more expensive. Maybe they plan to retool their production process two times over? Seems inefficient.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

myrmepropagandist
mastodon - Link to source
myrmepropagandist
• •
People keep saying this is like buying machines to replace factory line workers, but it's not. It's renting machines to replace workers. And renting them from people who are on the verge of becoming desperate since they aren't making a profit.

reshared this

in reply to myrmepropagandist

J. R. DePriest :EA DATA. SF:
mastodon - Link to source
J. R. DePriest :EA DATA. SF:
• •
That's the plan.
Fire everybody.
Use genAI to produce mediocre results for less money.
When the price goes up, "fire" the genAI and rehire the desperate former workers who never found another job for even less.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Rodney
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Rodney
• •
not even. It's more like renting slaves to replace labor, but neither really exists, and your product is still crap.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

XCM
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XCM
• •
We have seen a similar approach in IT. Companies thought they were smart by firing 90% of the technical staff, remove servers and storage, move everything to the cloud, and hite cheap offshore support.
The results long term have been mediocre support, skyrocketing cloud costs, vendor lock in, and total lack of oversight as company data now is stored on someone else’s servers.
But it looked good on spreadsheets.
in reply to XCM

plan-A
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
plan-A
•
@myrmepropagandist @XCM
in reply to myrmepropagandist

sollat
mastodon - Link to source
sollat
• •
And the machine makers can decide at any moment that the model you’ve built your service around is no longer available due to maintenance issues or because they’ve decided to pivot. And then you’re SOL.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Jefflon "SynAck" Appleberg
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Jefflon "SynAck" Appleberg
• •
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Hal Pomeranz
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Hal Pomeranz
• •
Maybe they don’t care about long term. Maybe they just want to boost their short term numbers, cash out, and leave somebody else holding the bag.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Hal Pomeranz
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Hal Pomeranz
• •
No benefits, no unions, no back talk. Rent is way cheaper than fully-loaded salaries.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Nazo
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Nazo
• •

Darned good points. (Except LLMs are not AI and it's not ok to let them keep calling them such.)

A company that has workers who are trained and experienced in working with its needs has greater independence. By relying on another company to do everything for them, they actually not only lose that independence, but they risk that the other company now has the means to simply replace them...

Actually, I believe I have heard examples of this happening in the past (albeit not LLMs.)

in reply to myrmepropagandist

Chip Unicorn
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Chip Unicorn
• •

I have never met a C-suite executive who could think more than a quarter ahead.

You're assuming that those executives will be around for more than a quarter, and won't have cashed out and are sipping margaritas by their Olympic-sized pool.

in reply to myrmepropagandist

elizabeth worm🔅
akkoma - Link to source
elizabeth worm🔅
• •
control id assume. its more about how they feel than economic efficiency
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Steven Hoefer
mastodon - Link to source
Steven Hoefer
• •
And these are all companies who are fighting unions because they don't want anyone to have any kind of power over them. Just wait until their Do Stuff bill doubles overnight.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

wasabi brain
mastodon - Link to source
wasabi brain
• •
someone needs to show me the math for like replacing checkout counter workers earning $20-25/hr including benefits versus installing millions of dollars in specialized equipment plus the compute for these AI auto checkouts - not even including model training! Plus inevitably just paying foreign workers to review the recorded video when the models fail.
in reply to wasabi brain

myrmepropagandist
mastodon - Link to source
myrmepropagandist
• •

@virtualinanity

Automated checkout was supposed to reduce the number of cashiers needed at stores. But now they need a person to fix the machines and people to help the people using the self-checkout... meaning it didn't really reduce labor costs much at all.

Things like checking ID, reversing charges all require an employee.

And in most stores they still need to have some regular checkout since some customers just CANNOT do it.

@wasabi brain
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Suzanne she/her
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Suzanne she/her
• •
I am living for the day the bubble bursts. Getting my popcorn ready for the show.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Skjeggtroll
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Skjeggtroll
• •
Even if, for the sake of argument, you ignore the real cost of LLM compute and assume the bubble won't burst -- your whole business has now changed to be just reselling LLM compute: You've become a middle-man that adds little to no value and only exists until your customers realizes they can just buy directly from the source, or your LLM provider decides they'd rather keep your profit margin for themselves.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Dan
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Dan
• •

management has been aggressively pushing to opex vs. capex for at least the last 30 years.. from most employees being contractors, to magic beans, it's all the same

short term gains with terrible long-term prospects. but they've learned they won't be held accountable. at worst they might have to change jobs and probably end up making more.

in reply to myrmepropagandist

Kofi Loves Efia
mastodon - Link to source
Kofi Loves Efia
• •
6. The AI company now in a very real and possibly legal sense - own what and how you do business
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Dean F.
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Dean F.
• •
Venture capitalists have the same MO as drug dealers, don't they?
in reply to cy

Light
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Light
• •
@cy @soulexpress What does that mean?
I've never interacted with either of those types of characters
@Dean F. @cy
in reply to Light

cy
snac - Link to source
cy
• •

It's what the stereotypical drug dealer says to get their customers hooked on whatever drug it is, by making it easy to get, then charging them up the butt once they're addicted.

"To take a hit" is colloquial for using a recreational drug.

CC: @soulexpress@musician.social @futurebird@sauropods.win

@myrmepropagandist @Dean F.
in reply to Light

cy
snac - Link to source
cy
• •

Yes, by making stuff cheap up front by lying (betting that they'll be able to pay for it tomorrow), then enshittifying once you're invested in their product (and they can't pay for it).

CC: @soulexpress@musician.social @futurebird@sauropods.win

@myrmepropagandist @Dean F.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Lorgo Numputz
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Lorgo Numputz
• •

Furthermore:

Tech companies who stop using traditional means and, instead, move to using LLM services have given up their ability to do work over to the LLM vendors.

Once the subsidy from VCs ends the price will go up drastically - what choice will they have but pay it? They laid off all of their workers who knew how to make things happen.

in reply to myrmepropagandist

JWcph, Radicalized By Decency
mastodon - Link to source
JWcph, Radicalized By Decency
• •
Exactly. Even in the best case scenario for #AI, businesses are going to end up literal hostages. You'd think all those business school alumni could figure that out.
#ai
in reply to myrmepropagandist

EVHaste
mastodon - Link to source
EVHaste
• •
Sometimes I think it’s for the spite of keeping money out of laborer’s hands… they’re fine with paying a fortune to another executive for their tool, just to keep the poors poor.
This entry was edited (3 days ago)
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Toni Aittoniemi
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Toni Aittoniemi
• •

And that’s the benign side of the argument, really.

There’s a darker side, where psychopathic & narcissistic leaders can maintain companies whose mode of operation goes way beyond anything a real human would ever work for.

The elimination of moral human agency will enable actors whose cruelty will go beyond anything ever experienced by humanity so far.

Stuff of nightmares.

in reply to myrmepropagandist

OS-SCI
mastodon - Link to source
OS-SCI
• •
This is one if the the main reasons why #AI must be open source. May the #Foss be with you.
#ai #foss
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Kat
glitchsoc - Link to source
Kat
• •

AFAICT the answer to the riddle is that these execs are not thinking like rational businesspeople, however much they might speak and justify themselves in those terms.

It's about screwing people over, disempowering them, and replacing them with obedient machines that can't talk back. An LLM will never outmanoeuvre you in office politics, or threaten your bonus.

in reply to myrmepropagandist

kamstrup
mastodon - Link to source
kamstrup
• •

in many European countries (I don't know much about the US or UK), we not only have worker rights, but also the reverse: There are laws protecting the employer against unfair retaliation from the workers. Changing to renting AI throws these rights out the window.

It boggles the mind that anyone is willing to take that risk.

Much like crypto completely does away with consumer rights and protections in the banking system.

in reply to myrmepropagandist

canleaf08 ⌘ ✅
mastodon - Link to source
canleaf08 ⌘ ✅
• •
4. if something goes wrong, blame the (DEI or low performing) workers.
5. cancel DEI, make it harder for marginalized communities to find a career.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

XCM
mastodon - Link to source
XCM
• •
I think the biggest difference is scale.
24/7 availability without burnouts and ridiculous human requirements such as time off and maternity leave.
Some say AI should augment human skills.
So then we can relax while the AI does the job.
In reality, humans will just be given more work.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

AzureArmageddon
mastodon - Link to source
AzureArmageddon
• •
If AI was primary developed in the open instead of behind the closed doors of companies named "open" then nobody could charge monopolistic prices for it but nobody thought that far.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

joriki
mastodon - Link to source
joriki
• •
the high price and low quality will hit the sweet spot where a company can't justify hiring people to replace the AI, but the quality is just low enough to bleed the company to death
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Roknrol
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Roknrol
• •
Wages come with expectations of time off, benefits, and "understanding" when life jumps up and gets in the way.
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Paco Hope #resist
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Paco Hope #resist
• •

myrmepropagandist reshared this.

in reply to Paco Hope #resist

Tom Ritchford
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Tom Ritchford
• •

@paco You're mostly right, but "it depends."

For example, I pay Linode $20 a month to host a server for me, where I in turn host several dozen small sites for people (for free).

Now, I could buy a small machine, and set it up in my house, probably around the cost of a year's service, but then I'd have other issues. I'd need to get a static IP from my provider, I don't even know if they do that. The bandwidth would compete with mine.

1/

@Paco Hope #resist
in reply to Tom Ritchford

Tom Ritchford
mastodon - Link to source
Tom Ritchford
• •

@paco If I need to upgrade, I can spin up a new machine, copy, test, and switch with little stress. (I did it once before.)

So it works for me.

On a more dramatic level, I am working on a project that needs serious GPUs. The development machine I work on is a honking great physical machine that the company owns outright, running out of someone's garage in Estonia. (It's very reliable.)

They probably save tens of thousands of dollars a year that way.

It's a good choice.

2/

@Paco Hope #resist
in reply to Tom Ritchford

RyeNCode 🇨🇦
glitchsoc - Link to source
RyeNCode 🇨🇦
• •
@TomSwirly @paco
What I seen in the trenches (me a dev) when the org I was with went from owning to renting (on prem to cloud) was matched transition from knowing to ... Not knowing as a service.
Competency of infrastructure dropped like a rock. If Azure or AWS didn't have a "product" to do it then "we can't do that" or solution shad to be shoehorned into a bad/costly fit.
A pilot project that I needed one of our disused desktops for was denied: must be in cloud for $2k/mo or never
@Tom Ritchford @Paco Hope #resist
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Sherri W (SyntaxSeed)
mastodon - Link to source
Sherri W (SyntaxSeed)
• •

💯. Companies have no clue what they're losing by replacing workers with AI.

- AI will never sanity check or push back on company decisions.

- AI will never tell managers: "this is confusing" or "customers will hate this".

- AI will never innovate new ideas while working on an existing one.

- AI will never identify friction for users or biases (in fact it will create them).

- AI won't be your first-round testers as something is being built.

-AI won't give u free advertising.

in reply to myrmepropagandist

James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺
mastodon - Link to source
James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺
• •
And your company, what does it do, and what does it sell, and to whom? Because if no one's paying wages, who has the money to buy your stuff?
in reply to myrmepropagandist

fmc01
mastodon - Link to source
fmc01
• •
to quote JD “We pay rent for industrial robots to make shit that we have no money to buy” AI and industrial robots don’t buy anything except electricity. Go figure!
in reply to myrmepropagandist

MontyOnTheRun
mastodon - Link to source
MontyOnTheRun
• •
plus all the people you inevitably have to hire, to supervise and correct mistakes
in reply to myrmepropagandist

Derek Martin
mastodon - Link to source
Derek Martin
• •
@baldur That has been many a company’s dream since long before subscription pricing became the default. They’re still thinking they’ll own the intelligent robots, which will be durable & high quality, with low maintenance costs.
@Baldur Bjarnason
in reply to plan-A

plan-A
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
plan-A
•
@myrmepropagandist @XCM
That is 1 flaw only to detect.
And as I saw so much responses bout A.I. i did just the roll, this is just the 1st..
@myrmepropagandist @XCM
in reply to plan-A

plan-A
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
plan-A
•
@myrmepropagandist @XCM or else those codes mean copy paste from net> same as AI btw or must be dots at spaces.
@myrmepropagandist @XCM
Unknown parent

plan-A
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
plan-A
•
@XCM @myrmepropagandist
You've hit the nail! that is the whole thing!
Whatever you use is AI today or you gotta be a wolf.
@myrmepropagandist @XCM
in reply to plan-A

plan-A
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
plan-A
•
@myrmepropagandist @XCM you can deny ot with all force, although I see some benefits privately. But is inbuilt in all things now. Up to search engines and extensions we used years before we did not knew was AI alike UBlock Origin etc..
so each copy paste is passed on to database.
@myrmepropagandist @XCM
Unknown parent

plan-A
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
plan-A
•
@XCM @myrmepropagandist
I told you Unicode or other UTF-8 encoding non printable views on Code emulator..
@myrmepropagandist @XCM
in reply to plan-A

plan-A
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
plan-A
•
@myrmepropagandist @XCM
F12 or inspect f dev options are on in browser you can see the source , it say copy.
those you filter out and do the rest.
@myrmepropagandist @XCM
in reply to plan-A

plan-A
friendica (DFRN) - Link to source
plan-A
•
@myrmepropagandist @XCM
it is not fool-proof, but combined with rest you get at least a grasp..
where it matter.
@myrmepropagandist @XCM
Unknown parent

XCM
mastodon - Link to source
XCM
• •
@zer0unplanned
🤷‍♂️
So I suppose the AI produces typos too, now?
Read closely.
@plan-A
in reply to myrmepropagandist

veroandi
mastodon - Link to source
veroandi
• •
And because people have lost their jobs and have no money, they can't buy the company's product!
⇧