GenAI more buzz than biz as tech barely dents jobs, says survey

Despite some astronomical vendor valuations and predictions that it will transform society, the impact of GenAI in the workplace has yet to materialize, according to a recent global survey. Similarly, the much-hyped technology is yet to make an impact on jobs, according to interviews with 322 tech leaders globally. About half …

[GoneFission]

It's both reassuring that companies slavering after delicious head count reductions as a reward for buying into the gold rush didn't see a return on investment, and depressing that it won't stop them from doing it again 6 months from now when the next greased-up AI trend salesperson jellies their way into the C-suite offices & boardrooms.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chinese whispers

...helping with research

Can anyone see the problem with this?

Company 1 uses Gen AI to produce some research documents based on a large data set.

Company 2 uses Gen AI to help speed up their understanding those documents.

And so forth. To the point where you need a human to try and find the original source and check that any of what has been generated is fit for purpose.

[Mike 137]

"speeding up the creation of [...] marketing literature"

The perfect application of Gen AI, as marketing 'literature' doesn't have to make sense (or even be literate).

[IGotOut]

Re: "speeding up the creation of [...] marketing literature"

Yup. Even I use it for my marketing bullshit.

I'm way to straight talking to hit the buzz word bingo so a quick "I need a brief summary of ABC for the XYZ market along with some of the most useful hashtags for the target audience"

5 seconds later I'm a marketing guru.

If musicians and artists lose work it annoys me, but advertising agencies? Nah.

[Jimmy2Cows]

just 1 percent are seeing jobs replaced

1% may be small, but 1% of potentially all tech jobs (never mind the wider economy) is still a huge number of people to axe.

[Anna Nymous]

Re: just 1 percent are seeing jobs replaced

What I would like to see more than how many jobs are getting axed, is which kinds of jobs are actually getting axed due to this technology (with validation that those jobs are actually being axed because of this tech, as opposed to using this tech as an excuse to axe jobs one was going to axe anyway).

I think that insights into the 'quality of the axed jobs' will be very interesting to see.

[Steve McIntyre]

Good blog about this

https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/

[BigAndos]

I’m an engineer and I would say it has made me and my team slightly more productive. The outputs from copilot or chat gpt aren’t suitable code for production, and often don’t even work. However, the various models are great for chore work like generating mock data for unit tests or documenting methods. So useful to have around but not yet a game changer.