Yes, AI will eventually replace some workers. But that day is still a long way off

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Powderhorn@beehaw.org⁩ to ⁨technology@beehaw.org⁩

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/11/artificial-intelligence-small-business

Anyone firing employees because they thought that AI would do their jobs in 2025 should be fired. It really doesn’t take much research to see AI isn’t at the place where it’s replacing people – yet. And business managers – particularly in small and mid-sized companies – who think it is better think again.

At best, generative AI platforms are providing a more enhanced version of search, so that instead of sifting through dozens of websites, lists and articles to figure out how to choose a great hotel in Costa Rica, fix a broken microwave oven or translate a phrase from Mandarin to English, we simply ask our chatbot a question and it provides the best answer it finds. These platforms are getting better and more accurate and are indeed useful tools for many of us.

But these chatbots are nowhere near replacing our employees.

It’s somewhat akin to claiming that now that we have hammers, carpenters aren’t needed.

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Comments

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VagueAnodyneComments@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
LLMs do not enhance search. Search is worse than it has ever been. Pure non-techie drivel.

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- jarfil@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Whose LLMs?
  
  Content farms and SEO experts have been polluting search results for decades. Search LLMs have leveled the playing field: any trash a content farm LLM can spit out, a search LLM can filter out.
  
  Basically, this:
  
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  - VagueAnodyneComments@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    This is not accurate. You shouldn’t spread corpo propaganda.
    
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  - apotheotic@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Which search llm is filtering out any of the content farm and seo stuff?
    
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Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I have worked with people that could be replaced with a small bash script. It’s more a question of when and how many

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RickRussell_CA@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
With respect to the article, it’s wrong. AI help desk is already a thing. Yes, it’s terrible, but human help desk was already terrible. Businesses are ABSOLUTELY cutting out tier 1 call center positions.

LLMs are exceptionally good at language translation, which should be no surprise as that kind of statistical chaining is right up their alley. Translators are losing jobs. AI Contract analysis & legal blacklining are going to put a lot of junior employees and paralegals out of business.

I am very much an AI skeptic, but I also recognize that people who do the things LLMs are already pretty good at are in real trouble. As AI tools get better at more stuff, that target list of jobs will grow.

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- I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Cutting junior employees today sounds like a great option, until 10 years down the road you realize you don’t have any experienced people to backfill the senior employees who are leaving.
  
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Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I don’t think LLMs will ever replace a single worker.

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- sculd@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Companies that care about quality cannot replace workers with LLM.
  
  Problem is some “executives” think they can save cost by “AI”, and they are trying.
  
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  - Midnitte@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    They’re going/are replacing workers - the problem is they’re going to make someone else do more work and check/fix the output.
    
    In the end, there won’t be any cost savings (or frankly, even any “productivity”) - just another tool companies pay for because every other company uses it.
    
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- Opinionhaver@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  It almost certainly already has replaced several.
  
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  - Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    It almost certainly already has replaced several.
    
    Has it actually replaced them?
    
    Sure maybe some people have lost their jobs, but I don’t think they’ve really been replaced.
    
    It’s closer to laying someone off without replacement … because evening I’ve seen has suggested AI not only can’t do the work but it also doesn’t improve the productivity of workers using it in any meaningful way.
    
    Also, AI is not synonymous with LLM.
    
    I’d argue that’s all AI means anymore if it has any meaning left at all.
    
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  - Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    AI can replace management, they are about the most least useful in a company.
    
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- 30p87@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Meanwhile companies keep pushing “AI” (as in, LLMs integrated with image/video generation, STT and TTS, networking, file generation and reading, etc.), as traditional, useful ML, built for one purpose and fulfilling that purpose at least well, sinks into irrelevancy.
  
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p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Oh, geesh, where have I heard this pattern before with technology? Is it self-driving cars? Remember when the sky was falling because everybody said car transportation was going to change overnight because a bunch of fucking college students figured out how to win a self-driving car race. Where the hell is my fully-autonomous Level 5 self-driving car that was going to replace all of the truck driving jobs? Oh, what’s that? Are all of the jobs still here?

Technology moves the needle. It does not jam it all the way to the other side. Stop spending trillions of dollars on pipe dreams, only to have to force expectations back to reality ten years later.

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- Powderhorn@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  You can have your Level 5 car just as soon as we’ve tackled jet packs and fusion reactors. Priorities!
  
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- civilcoder@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  See you on the metaverse mate where we all hang out on the block chain
  
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