UK businesses eye AI as the cheaper, non-whining alternative to actual staff

British companies are looking to AI as a way of cutting investment in staff, according to new research. The research, reported in the Financial Times, is the latest suggestion that rather than boosting productivity (as marketing for AI products from the likes of Microsoft insists,) companies are increasingly exploring the …

[wolfetone]

"The survey attributed the shift to increasing costs in hiring staff due to government policies. For example, the UK Chancellor has increased the rate of National Insurance contributions by employers, and the National Living Wage is also set to increase."

There could be no living wage, there could be no NI contributions, but if a business still had to pay a sack of blood and bone £10 a day while AI cost them £1, they'd go for AI.

[Guy de Loimbard]

I'm with you on this, however, I think far too much smoke and mirrors on the actual cost of AI as a contrast and compare.

[breakfast]

Of course, AI will do almost any job worse than almost any human, but who does that have consequences for: Other human employees? The person signing the cheques doesn't care. Customers? Those are just money bags as far as the boss is concerned, as long as everyone in the industry is offering shitty AI service what choice do they have?

If you cut the costs at a company you are a good CEO who plays the game and you will be rewarded with a bonus and a pay rise. The impact on the people beneath you is no concern to you or your shareholders.

[Sykowasp]

It'll take a while for the first stories about "we migrated all our creative work to AI, three years later our customers were leaving us in droves" emerge.

Analytical AI is useful as a tool alongside other analysis tools. Generative AI is built upon theft and is disconcerting to look at (sure it will improve), never mind the absolutely shoddy quality of code generating AI - useful as a tool maybe, but not on its own.

The use of AI needs to be taxed significantly to cover both the human cost and the environmental cost.

[Jedit]

Well, yes, it will take about three years.

Seriously, though, it's already happening now. The boardgame industry is seeing a lot of new projects using AI art to cut corners, and there's a lot of pushback. There's a few people stanning for it, of course, and a lot of people either don't know or don't care, but the general response among those who express a preference is negative.

For myself, if I learn that a company plans to "redirect investment from staff to AI" then I will more than happily redirect my investment from their company to one that doesn't.

[hoola]

I rather suspect that you are in the minority,

That view is based on what I see on some of the comment on El Reg and the far worse views on BBC HYS,

There the prevailing view is:

Sack all public sector workers

Take all public sector worker's "gold plated" pensions

Don't pay anyone in the private sector more than I am being paid

Everyone should have saved more so it is their fault their pension is shite

Ditch the NHS - Private is better

No company is allowed to make any profit

All public services should be free

Nobody should pay any tax other than "The Rich" - essentially anyone earning more or with more wealth than the person posting.

Tax all wealth - if you home is with £500k then tax it, the fact it is your home and you would have to sell it to pay the tax escapes them.

Everything is the fault of "Boomers" - force them to sell their homes

Everything will be fixed by either voting Reform or "Rejoining" the EU.

It is sadly depressing there are so many with these views. I don't bother looking any more, it is too irritating.

[Doctor Syntax]

Everything is the fault of "Boomers" - force them to sell their homes

As a pre-boomer I upport this one. Load of entitled kids. Things were OK until they came along.

[David Hicklin]

Everything is the fault of "Boomers" - force them to sell their homes

As a pre-boomer I upport this one. Load of entitled kids

As one born right at the end of the Boomers period I resent that, we had to work bloody hard to get our home and the children certainly are not entitled

[Andrew Scott]

pre boomer

You must be nearing 100. Surprised you can use a computer or type. Must have go through the war.

[Nifty]

"The use of AI needs to be taxed significantly"

As does the wheel and the electric motor, and the word processor...

[hoola]

Ahh, there you are mis-informed.

There is no cost to AI.,,,,,,,,,,,

[simonlb]

AI is the new offshoring, so the costs won't be tangible for a while.

[hoola]

This was meant to be a joke....

We all not there are costs associated with AI. Those jumping on the bandwagon do not see that.

[codejunky]

@hoola

"This was meant to be a joke...."

I am surprised you got 7 downvotes for that, I am guessing not everyone realised the sarcasm.

"We all not there are costs associated with AI. Those jumping on the bandwagon do not see that."

I am expecting a large damp squib with maybe a few good applications of AI in the world. When the bubble bursts I am hoping for lots of spare energy production and computing parts in countries that embrace it.

[PeterM42]

Definitions of AI

Asinine Incompetence

Asinine Ignorance

[abend0c4]

The problem they will face is in getting AI to pay for their products and services.

[codejunky]

@wolfetone

"There could be no living wage, there could be no NI contributions, but if a business still had to pay a sack of blood and bone £10 a day while AI cost them £1, they'd go for AI."

Well said. And the higher they make the cost of a meat sack the fewer jobs at the lower end for them. But it is what people wanted with the living wage and such.

[jockmcthingiemibobb]

Re: @wolfetone

Imagine the cheek of wanting to be paid a "living wage" to enable luxuries like food. Heating and a roof over your head? I mean it's just one step away from Communism.

[that one in the corner]

Re: @wolfetone

> Heating and a roof over your head

We'll all just have to hunker down by the heat exchangers outside the AI data centers (sic).

[codejunky]

Re: @wolfetone

@jockmcthingiemibobb

"Imagine the cheek of wanting to be paid a "living wage" to enable luxuries like food. Heating and a roof over your head?"

Damn right the cheek. You get paid based on the value you produce. Demanding you should be paid above that is what gets rid of the jobs and so those who want a starter job, little extra money, etc cant because of greedy buggers 'wanting' to be paid a mythical 'living wage'. Hence the increasing automation for the low value jobs that need doing but the meat bag costs too much.

[juice]

Re: @wolfetone

> You get paid based on the value you produce

Interesting thought. So when do we start culling the CEOs?

[codejunky]

Re: @wolfetone

@juice

"Interesting thought. So when do we start culling the CEOs?"

Why? If businesses would make more money for their investors by cutting them out and not having them I am sure they would. As seen at Disney the CEO can make a big difference, and not always positive.

[juice]

Re: @wolfetone

> If businesses would make more money for their investors by cutting them out and not having them

The problem with that theory, is that pretty much everyone involved in deciding executive pay levels has at least some degree of self interest. Look at the various kerfluffles at Tesla for instance:

https://fortune.com/2025/01/09/tesla-board-elon-musk-compensation-chair-robyn-denholm/

It’s official: Tesla’s board collectively enriched themselves at shareholder expense to the tune of nearly $1 billion

...

The settlement requires numerous past and present members of Tesla’s board to return roughly $277 million in cash and $459 million in stock options, and forgo further promised compensation worth $184 million

...

The carmaker’s board has repeatedly found itself at the center of controversy. It includes multiple business partners and personal friends of CEO Elon Musk. His own younger brother is a director, for instance.

...

The Tesla CEO revealed in court testimony he negotiated not at arm’s length with his directors but with himself. He was allowed to draft the conditions of his package as he saw fit, and the board put it to a shareholder vote, while failing to acknowledge that they were beholden to him.

Equally, there's plenty of fun charts which show how the wage ratio has drastically increased over the last few decades: in the USA, it's gone from around 20:1 in the 1965, to around 400:1 today [*].

https://truthout.org/articles/ceo-pay-has-grown-by-1460-percent-since-1978-as-workers-wages-stagnate/

If you're willing to believe that a modern CEO is somehow producing 20 times more value than their 1965 equivalent, then I have a nice bridge to sell to you.

The above article also highlights another interesting fact:

According to research released by EPI on Tuesday, CEO pay has skyrocketed by a staggering 1,460 percent since 1978. This has far outpaced the growth of the economy and even the pay of the top 0.1 percent, EPI finds, with the S&P stock market growing by 1,063 percent in the same time and the earnings of the top 0.1 percent growing 385 percent between 1978 and 2020.

Admittedly, while this is all based on averages, I'd be interested to hear an explanation for why CEO renumeration packages are growing faster than the revenues of the companies they're working for!

[*] Things are somewhat better in the UK; the ratio is "only" around 120:1!

[codejunky]

Re: @wolfetone

@juice

"The problem with that theory, is that pretty much everyone involved in deciding executive pay levels has at least some degree of self interest."

In the market everyone is deciding in self interest. I want food, the seller wants money. We are both trading in self interest.

"Equally, there's plenty of fun charts which show how the wage ratio has drastically increased over the last few decades"

And what about it? We also have increased living standards.

"Admittedly, while this is all based on averages, I'd be interested to hear an explanation for why CEO renumeration packages are growing faster than the revenues of the companies they're working for!"

Didnt that come down to taxation of renumeration in perks?

[Tilda Rice]

Re: @wolfetone

>Admittedly, while this is all based on averages, I'd be interested to hear an explanation for why CEO renumeration packages are growing faster than the revenues of the companies they're working for!

Because, the relative value isn't an appropriate analogy.

Top tier footballers weren't paid tens of millions of pounds per season to kick a football in the 1960s or 1970s.

Current EPL players salary per hour would also look insane if you try to equate it with what normal wage slaves like you and I earn. Value is relative to the topic/context and can't be simply compared in an Apples and Oranges example like you've attempted.

These new anomolies are for companies pulling in sales and subscriptions across a global customer base that we didn't start experiencing in great numbers until these tech empires emerged - many as a consequence of the Internet and technology advances.

[webstaff]

Re: @wolfetone tell me more about this bridge...

Are you selling shares in this venture?

Maybe we can setup a sales structure, I'll sit at the top with you and we will advertise it on tiktok to the pleblic.

[Jedit]

"So when do we start culling the CEOs?"

I know this guy named Luigi...

[VicMortimer]

Re: "So when do we start culling the CEOs?"

One down, a few hundred more to go.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "value"

Value.

Aye, there's the rub. Who determines value?

As Birmingham council and many others discovered, women's work is of equal value, not less, and they got stung for a huge back pay bill.

(Hence pay review bodies, minimum wages etc.)

[codejunky]

Re: "value"

@AC

"Aye, there's the rub. Who determines value?"

The market. It doesnt matter what system is in place, it is the market that determines value. Hence the increasing costs of living wage and NI can put people out of work because they do not produce enough value to be employed. Produce less value than that needed to employ you and the business goes under.

[Wang Cores]

Oh come off it.

I realize the idea is just to keep labor devalued but at least don't pick a transparent dodge like "The Market" as arbitrator of utility/value. The same Market that's valued Musk's brainrot at $55 billion, 25x more than the company brings in, The Market that has the maxim "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent", etc?

Hell take cryptocurrency. Miners throw millions into compute and hardware (possibly billions if you count second-order costs) to brute-force solve a hash for... an updated ledger that says you're entitled to a token worth 100k. Yeah, that's valuable economic activity that The Market props up.

[codejunky]

Re: Oh come off it.

@Wang Cores

"I realize the idea is just to keep labor devalued but at least don't pick a transparent dodge like "The Market" as arbitrator of utility/value."

Then what is? How much will you pay for something? If that something costs more to produce then you have none (see toilet paper in Venezuela after price controls) or the price of food being a much smaller portion of peoples budgets in developed countries. Peoples choices decide the utility/value of things. What else does?

None of your examples seem to say otherwise. Instead they seem to support that the market decides.

[webstaff]

Re: Oh come off it. @codyjunky

Wow people don't like to hear the truth of the matter do they?

They really hate the commentator, when they should hate the game, the league operators and the club owners.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh come off it.

"The market" has no idea what a living wage is. That's why "the market" CANNOT, in a civilized society, be allowed to determine what a minimum wage is.

If there's truly a limited quantity of something available, then price controls and rationing are a FAR more fair way to decide who gets it than "only the rich can have any, and they can have as much as they want". And that's true for EVERYTHING that isn't a luxury.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is a FAR better way to run a society than "The rich get everything, fuck the poor" which is the system you're advocating. And if some semblance of an equitable society can't be established because oligarchs have bought the politicians, then it WILL be established with blood. I don't know about you, but I prefer peace. Useful idiots like you aren't helping.

[codejunky]

Re: Oh come off it.

@AC

""The market" has no idea what a living wage is."

The market knows it is bull. Things take an amount of time, effort and resources to provide, and if you dont get back that value then people dont do it. Again Venezuela.

"That's why "the market" CANNOT, in a civilized society, be allowed to determine what a minimum wage is."

You swapped. You started with living wage and changed to minimum wage. Something that doesnt exist in various countries including some of the nordics. Because the minimum wage is the wage someone is willing to work for. Anything over that bans work and puts people out of work.

"If there's truly a limited quantity of something available, then price controls and rationing are a FAR more fair way to decide who gets it"

Like the glorious soviet days. Which completely shocked them to see fully stocked and plentiful shelves when they visited the US. Price controls and rationing have been shown the worst ways killing vast numbers.

""From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is a FAR better way to run a society"

I am fairly certain you are trolling to even say something so stupid but sorry comrade, your ways have been shown inferior. Only really successful in N.Korea, or at least the closest thing to success on that front.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "value"

Who determines value?

If the job pays less than $20 per hour, then the person who is prepared to do it for the least money is best value, but expendable. If it pays more than $100 per hour, then the person who is prepared to do it for the least money is a false economy and the most expensive candidate must be offered incentives to remain. In between $20 and $100 it's subjective.

[hoola]

Re: "value"

But it takes years for that to be fixed.

The impact of replacing jobs with AI is no more than the contractual notice period.

[LVPC]

Re: "value"

>> The impact of replacing jobs with AI is no more than the contractual notice period.

1. Company replaces customer service with AI chatbots

2. Unhappy customers become unhappy former customers

3. Complaints go down because people give up - "look, it's working - complaints are down"

4. Sales are down. - hire sales chatbots

5. Sales continue to drop

We've seen this story before. Cutting quality costs customers. Ask the cable companies, the telecoms, Boeing, CEOs pulling this deal know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

[Mad Chaz]

Re: @wolfetone

"You get paid based on the value you produce."

If that was true, wages would have gone up faster than inflation for the last 50 years, as productivity increased faster than inflation. That did not happen.

No, you get payed whatever your employer can get away with. If that means hiring someone on a temporary visa who can barelly speak the language, so be it, need that quarterly profit margin to make the CEO's bonus.

[codejunky]

Re: @wolfetone

@Mad Chaz

"If that was true, wages would have gone up faster than inflation for the last 50 years, as productivity increased faster than inflation. That did not happen."

Why? Wages are a part of value but not everyone prioritises wage. Inflation is a disease of money with too much or too little easily affecting inflation, and there are varying methods of inflation adding and taking away things to be counted. And yet 50 years ago is when central heating started to be commonly installed in every house as an example. Are we better or worse off than 50 years ago, and if you say worse I will laugh at you.

Hell even kids from 'poor' homes have mobile phones, data and access to global information I didnt have when I was in school with the technology room facilities!

*Edit:

forgot to respond to this gem- "No, you get payed whatever your employer can get away with." that is markets.

[that one in the corner]

Re: @wolfetone

>> No, you get payed whatever your employer can get away with.

> that is markets.

No. That is bullying. The employer and employee are not of equal status. There is no "market" between them.

[codejunky]

Re: @wolfetone

@that one in the corner

"No. That is bullying. The employer and employee are not of equal status. There is no "market" between them."

Except for when there is abundance of labour the wages and compensation fall or dont rise so much. When there is a labour shortage the wages and compensation for labour increases. There isnt an equal status in the market, it is abundance and shortage toward an equilibrium (unless the market is interfered with)

[ChodeMonkey]

Re: @wolfetone

Dear-oh-dear. The idea of a market always seeking equilibrium oversimplifies complex labour dynamics. Long-term factors, such as skill mismatches, globalisation, and technological advancements, can distort any labour market adjustments, creating persistent inequalities that aren’t resolved naturally.

Also employers often have greater bargaining power, especially in monopsony-like conditions (few employers in a market), allowing them to suppress wages even during labour shortages.

[codejunky]

Re: @wolfetone

@ChodeMonkey

"Dear-oh-dear. The idea of a market always seeking equilibrium oversimplifies complex labour dynamics."

To which then you list a bunch of disruptions that the market then seeks equilibrium

"Also employers often have greater bargaining power, especially in monopsony-like conditions (few employers in a market), allowing them to suppress wages even during labour shortages."

To which you give an example of a small problem without the follow up stages. So what happens when the wages get suppressed? The job becomes less desirable and people move on to other things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @wolfetone

And at some point those other things include "guillotine operator".

You want a bloody revolution? Because that's how you get a bloody revolution.

[AbominableCodeman]

Re: @wolfetone

I couldn't agree more. If the poors don't have access to daddy's money to set up thier own plantation, well they should just work harder. It's so very tiersome having to listen to the poors whining about 'cost of living', do they have any idea how much it costs to run a Gulf Stream for a year? I wish they would just shut up and get on finishing my next Range Rover.

[codejunky]

Re: @wolfetone

@AbominableCodeman

"I couldn't agree more."

How does your stupid comment relate to anything I said? Are you one of those coward trolls that follows me around spouting nonsense but forgot to tick the box this time?

[AbominableCodeman]

Re: @wolfetone

It would appear I touched a nerve. Was it a little close to home, sir? What model do you have a Vogue, Evoque?

[codejunky]

Re: @wolfetone

@AbominableCodeman

"It would appear I touched a nerve. Was it a little close to home, sir? What model do you have a Vogue, Evoque?"

Are you sure you are replying to my comments? Whatever you are taking seems a little strong. I suggest you cut back and reread your comments when sober.

[ChodeMonkey]

Re: @wolfetone

"What model do you have a Vogue, Evoque?"

I'm guessing the only Vogue she's ever owned was bought from the newsagents.

[Anonymous Coward]

> roof over your head

The "capitalist" businesses are targeted with minimum wages, assuming exploitation. But the same capitalists are not more efficiently targeted to actually address the "roof problem" by Land Value Tax, for example. The goal is to target the nearest causative point. Not the most distant, irrelevant one (minimum wages). Housing is overwhelmingly the most significant cost for the poorest.

[Tilda Rice]

Re: > roof over your head

So socialism would stop the huge migration numbers and fix the problem then?

UK Net Immigration 2024: 728,000

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/

2.4 Citizens per dwelling

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/householdcharacteristics/homeinternetandsocialmediausage/bulletins/householdandresidentcharacteristicsenglandandwales/census2021/previous/v1

That means just to house the net people coming into the country we need to build

728,000 / 2.4 = 303,000 homes per year just to keep up with current demand just on my fag packet maths. But it matches most estimate you can find.

There is also a backlog: (4 million)

https://www.centreforcities.org/publication/the-housebuilding-crisis/

The UK could ease the problem by not issuing as many work and study VISAs.

[abend0c4]

Re: > roof over your head

The UK could ease the problem by not issuing as many work and study VISAs.

Why does the UK issue so many work visas (in particular)?

Because businesses cannot recruit the people they need from within the UK. There are complex reasons for that - one obvious one being that businesses refuse to invest in training people if they can import them more cheaply. In crucial areas such as health and social care the jobs don't have the wages and conditions to be attractive to people who have alternatives. However, these additional people are working and paying taxes and spending money and by virtue of being generally being younger they're not making heavy demands on the health service or receiving pensions. And yet the UK economy is still unable to balance its books.

While I agree that the rate of increase in the UK population is unsustainable, if you simply stop issuing visas not only with health and social care deteriorate even further but without the additional income (and lucrative visa charges and health service surcharges), the economy will also continue to deteriorate.

If you want to see a significant change it will involve clamping down heavily on businesses externalising their costs and paying people more, particularly in the public sector. Unfortunately, people are still falling for the notion they can have their cake and eat it.

[doublelayer]

Re: @wolfetone

Part, but only part, of codejunky's comment is correct. It's true that there are jobs where, if the price of workers increases too much, the amount you have to pay to hire someone is less than the amount the business can make from their labor, and that means the employees concerned will lose their jobs and the businesses will shut down, either that element of their business, or just in general. If the minimum wage is increased, some of that will happen.

Where codejunky is wrong is thinking that this is something we can control or choose not to do, at least in our current environment. Whether or not there is an explicit minimum wage, employees cost because they have costs they have to pay, and those costs are increasing. Just as it can be too expensive to hire someone at a wage, it can be too expensive to live for a worker to accept a low enough wage. The chaos at the bottom of the wage scale is papered over by minimum wage and government assistance programs, which makes this more confusing, but whether those are present or not, the same market forces apply there. If you eliminated a minimum wage number, an unofficial one would be created based on available assistance programs and their eligibility requirements.

We can't help people in an unlimited way by increasing minimum wages drastically. However, when employees are more expensive to hire, it often just means that the business concerned needs to do something different. If your business model needs to hire people at below what those people need to live, then your business model will fail just as much as my business model which requires me to have a reliable and cheap supply of pure gold. I need to find a cheaper material to do it, and you need to find a way of having fewer workers which you can pay sufficiently to get them, or we need to have a lot more money, or we have to find a different business. In many cases, the government-set wage is not outlandish to the extent that it's making that happen when it otherwise would not.

[codejunky]

Re: @wolfetone

@doublelayer

I was right with you until the end- "the government-set wage is not outlandish to the extent that it's making that happen when it otherwise would not." which contradicts what you say before (and I agree with)- "Whether or not there is an explicit minimum wage, employees cost because they have costs they have to pay". If the gov minimum wage did not exceed the market minimum then it wouldnt exist. And what is worse is people talking about 'living wage' instead.

The actual minimum wage is the amount that someone is willing to do that work at that price. Maybe its a kid living with parents and wanting some spending money, maybe someone who values something other than the wage. A government mandated minimum removes jobs that might otherwise exist. And before the usual trolls jumps on this there are even nordic countries without government mandated minimum wage.

[doublelayer]

Re: @wolfetone

I think there are two points where we see this differently.

"If the gov minimum wage did not exceed the market minimum then it wouldnt exist."

Minimum wages were created for a reason, but they don't necessarily adjust what people are willing to do. There are places that have not increased their minimum wage where it effectively doesn't matter because nobody gets paid near that anyway. However, in a world where there are income-limited support programs, a minimum wage is partially there to avoid situations where the needs people are paying for come from that support program rather than the work they are doing. Doing without one in an anarcho-capitalist world where there is no support for anyone might work with the rest of the philosophy, but otherwise, it creates conflicts with any program with an income or resources test attached unless you have something else that replaces it. For instance, although you're right that countries like Norway don't have a single minimum wage, they do have some sector-specific minimum wages, they have intense support for unions which set wage agreements (which comes with its own problems), and abuses can be challenged in court. I don't want to live in an anarcho-capitalist world, nor do most people, but even if you support such a philosophy, you can't build it in little pieces and trying will just break existing systems without moving closer.

I've seen complaints from employers who cannot find people willing to work for what they want to pay. Some of them try to blame minimum wage laws; if they weren't restricted, then surely they'd find workers who would agree to be paid less. A lot of them can't do that because they are offering above the minimum wage and they still can't find people. I've seen similar complaints about things other than workers, such as why they can't find a high-end laptop for £100. They have their people to blame for that too, Linux, for no longer fitting on a floppy, Microsoft, for charging £800 per laptop for the Windows license, Taiwan, because most laptop manufacturers are based there so surely they must work together. In both cases, their complaints about what they think they ought to find are wrong. I've seen calls for the minimum to be ridiculously high, suggested by people who appear to assume that businesses have unlimited funds and could already pay that much, and that will not work if it is implemented. Proving that it is takes more than alleging that it must be by definition of the thing existing.

[codejunky]

Re: @wolfetone

@doublelayer

"I think there are two points where we see this differently."

To be honest I dont have a problem with what you wrote, the government support programs being a general mess of the first section has always been the case, but making people unemployed as with the end of your second section only puts people on welfare full time. I have no problem with welfare/support and that relies on people working to create the excess production that supports them.

"I've seen complaints from employers who cannot find people willing to work for what they want to pay. Some of them try to blame minimum wage laws; if they weren't restricted, then surely they'd find workers who would agree to be paid less. A lot of them can't do that because they are offering above the minimum wage and they still can't find people."

That one is truthful and funny. The market is undefeated.

Thanks for the reply

[Dan 55]

Perhaps a more effective way of running a business would be replacing the C-suite with ChatGPT accounts at $200/pcm/ea, keeping the meatbags lower down, and distributing the money saved on salary rises.

[Wang Cores]

That would be too rational. We need thought leaders, chiefs, kings. What do you need peasants for? The products will just make themselves if we train it on enough stolen data!

[hoola]

Whilst making short term profit for execs before everything crashes in a heap.

That concept is alien to these business and all politicians, All they are look at is the next bonus or bung.

[Dr Fidget]

Frankly, as far as an awful lot of businesses are concerned, if there was a decent profit from boiling babies in a bathtub, that's what they'd do. Especially if it boosted the CEO's annual bonus.

[Guy de Loimbard]

Still the hype that AI

Is coming to "Take Yer Jerbs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGmhLtsK2ZQ&t=1s

I still remain to be convinced it's going to do anything of significance to actually cause considerable impact to actual meat popsicles, i.e. Us Hoomans!

Sure, there may be areas for streamlining business, by the use of this somewhat immature tech, but that's been the case for some time in any sector, manglement are always looking to be more efficient, through whatever means, tech, cheap labour, offshoring ..... the list goes on.

Shame I don't have an FT subscription, or I'd read the report and pick that apart too!

I'm seeing a lot of hype and limited substance in AI reports.

[werdsmith]

Re: Still the hype that AI

It is a nascent technology.

I can remember when personal computers started appearing on desks a few at first. They promised all kinds of stuff and gave people concerns about employment.

Eventually they found their roles and evolved, became connected then became comfortable communication devices. Displaced desk telephones, only too about 35 years to do that.

And all the time they are creating new kinds of jobs.

AI will do that, it will fail at some things but find places where it works. Then it will evolve from there creating new kinds of jobs.

[Falmari]

Re: Still the hype that AI

@werdsmith "It is a nascent technology."

No the technology is not nascent, it has been around for decades. Generative AI is just the latest advancements to 30+ year old technology (Neural networks using generative models*).

If anything I would call Generative AI mature technology. Because it seems the only way to improve performance** is to make bigger and bigger models and throw more compute power at them.

* There is more to it than that (transformer) but the basic concept is huge neural network and the statistical model is generative instead of discriminative.

** More like hope.

[hoola]

Re: Still the hype that AI

I think the fallout is that there will be far too much expected of AI. The resulting costs will impact profits with the inevitable fallout that jobs are lost, not that spending of worthless AI is reduced.

[Bebu sa Ware]

"do more with less"

Inevitably that really crystallizes a less with less for the poor sods that count as their long suffering clients or customers.

At the rate they slapping on this shit all over the shop they may have import merde across the Channel to make up for a domestic shortfall.

[TimMaher]

Re: "import merde"

That’s only because our water companies are wasting our domestic merde.

They throw it into the rivers, the lakes, the sea.

Let’s get some AI to clean it all up. /s

[Anonymous Coward]

It’s all fun and games at first

Pretty soon, the AI is going to screw you over and/or license costs will go through the roof.

End of the day, it will be us meat bags to the rescue.

[heyrick]

Re: It’s all fun and games at first

Rescue?

Unlike AI, us meatbags have memories, so we'll happily crank open a can and celebrate as the idiots go to the wall.

[hoola]

Re: It’s all fun and games at first

It is also going to screw people over who have decisions made on what they are trying to buy, mortgage, loan insure and find that the stupid system has said no. There is no human to go an figure out why so you are stuffed.

It is happening to a certain extent in finance already "computer says no" end of interaction.

[Doctor Syntax]

It makes good sense to use it to replace non-empowered, script-following, customer-facing staff. If you're determined to lose customers, why spend money doing so?

[codejunky]

@Doctor Syntax

"If you're determined to lose customers, why spend money doing so?"

I wonder if this will be a rerun of outsourcing to India. Which then reversed as customers left due to customer service.

[werdsmith]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

That only applies to customer service.

[codejunky]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

@werdsmith

"That only applies to customer service."

How do you mean sorry? If you mean AI it is being applied to all kinds of things with... varying levels of success. Some might work out and others not, but of those that work it is still the customer who decides if the end service/product is good enough.

[ChodeMonkey]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

They means the actual tech jobs that went to Indian pretty much never returned.

[codejunky]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

@ChodeMonkey

"They means the actual tech jobs that went to Indian pretty much never returned."

What about them? Some outsourced jobs came back. Previously I was employed because of in-sourcing from Sri Lanka on a project they did a terrible job on. We had to rewrite the entire thing.

[ChodeMonkey]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

Sorry, I meant real tech/engineering jobs, such as microelectronics etc.

[codejunky]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

@ChodeMonkey

"Sorry, I meant real tech/engineering jobs, such as microelectronics etc."

So now would you like to tell people what are real jobs and which are not? That was funny

[ChodeMonkey]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

Real tech: engineering. Let's be fair, software isn't an engineering discipline really, is it.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

ISTM that these days there are quite a lot of products where the H/W is a set of odd pits and pieces that don't really do much without the control logic in S/W (in which I'll include firmware), starting with microcoded CPUs.

[that one in the corner]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

There a many, many instances of hardware that are nothing at all without software to control them - starting, as you say, from microcode up. And that code is pretty well engineered and deserves to be referred to in that way.

But that is a miniscule amount of the software floating around, let alone the software being (re)written every day. Practically a rounding error. Even if we are constantly running multiple copies of that properly engineered code every hour of every day, in all the microcontrollers and CPUs around us, the amount involved is piddling compared to the size of the Office Suite component that you avoid using because it crashes every time you so much as sneeze at it.

When you move into critical control code for larger systems, such as aircraft and, increasingly, cars, which we again all interact with every day, directly or indirectly (planes fly overhead every day, even if it is rarely me inside one - and I really hope they don't have a fly-by-wire fart and come pay us an unexpected visit), the amount of code involved - and the amount of code churn - is vastly outweighed by all the crap online systems that are changed daily in the hopes something will stick.

And when you drag in all the LLM stuff, where the contents of the models, the weightings, effectively make up vast piles of flow control that nobody even comprehends, let alone can claim to have rigorously engineered...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

codejunk> I was employed because of in-sourcing from Sri Lanka on a project they did a terrible job on. We had to rewrite the entire thing.

Sri Lanka is not India. I suppose we can chalk this one up as another codejunky low-info/bullshit post, hmm?

(Did Sri Lanka offer you residency?)

[werdsmith]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

How do you mean sorry?

No need to apologise, just learn from your mistakes.

Read your own comment. Your own words “due to customer service”.

[codejunky]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

@werdsmith

"No need to apologise, just learn from your mistakes."

I am guessing you dont understand the politeness when asking you to make sense of your comment instead of the ambiguous one line of nothingness. Or you are being dense, either way I am sorry.

"Read your own comment. Your own words “due to customer service”."

Are you suggesting AI will make everything worse not just customer service (poorly explaining the sentiment of my comment)? That is just a guess because you dont actually say anything in your comment.

[ChodeMonkey]

Re: @Doctor Syntax

Is English not your first language? If so, sorry for not accommodating you.

[Fonant]

Generative AI is just bullshit-generation

Depends rather what they mean by "AI", but in almost all cases AI does not replace humans, it merely provides some automation that humans still need to check.

Generative AI is just a glorified bullshit-generator. Excellent if you need bullshit (e.g. advertising copy, political press releases) but worse than useless for anything that needs to be accurate, be correct, or involve careful judgement.

Companies switching to AI should be very careful that they're not going to shoot their own business in the foot by their AI making a serious mistake, or just by sounding like they're bullshit merchants.

[Tron]

Re: Generative AI is just bullshit-generation

Quote: UK businesses eye AI as the cheaper, non-whining alternative to actual staff

In other news, the Pope is Catholic.

Aside from the reputational and legal risks, AI doesn't actually replace meatbags, it is just used to justify a downgrade in some areas like customer service, and will generally work like a chocolate teapot.

Business leaders in the UK typically cannot wire a plug and assume AI is Star Trek level magic that can replace a minimum wage slave for a £10 software fee. So they parrot the buzzwords and demand that management make the switch. They may as well just torch their badly run company, as that is how well it will turn out.

It's basically Switching to Cheap Indian Call Centres 2.0 and that really didn't go very well either.

To add balance, since the decline of Sterling at Brexit, many businesses in the UK have been hanging on by their fingernails, lots have vanished, and finding competent staff, post Brexit, is a grail quest. They are looking at AI out of desperation as nothing else will save them. AI won't either. But they won't discover that until it is too late and they have locked themselves into expensive software deals.

[that one in the corner]

Here are your new rates for AI hosting

So you've destaffed, put all your reliance on an AI service that was being held aloft by massive fund pumping to build the hype and now you get to actually pay for all the energy and hardware costs to keep driving the monster.

Of course, you can just switch supplier, one AI vendor is just the same as the next, isn't it? Oops, you've been using a model that has been fed all of your business documents to train it up[1], here is our fee to release all those nadans - and here is the fee to see what happens when you try to put those weightings into the new vendor's beast; good luck, maybe they started with the same base model we did[2]. Perhaps you'd be better off just feeding the new empty model with all the original documents - and the entire conversation history: oh, you didn't keep your own copy of all that? Never mind, we can sell you this tape from our archive...

What was that? Short and curlies? Nah, we've got you by something much better.

[1] and it was getting pretty good, only putting the wrong logo on 5% of the documents by this point.

[2] yeah, no, this isn't a database where you can just dump the tables and rules then feed it into pretty much any other vendor's similar box; didn't you read the tech briefing? Where it said "emergent" and the little asterisked footnote about "magic" and "incomprehensible"?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

The key point to remember is that the A in AI stands for Artificial. There is zero intelligence involved.

[Howard Sway]

AI as the cheaper, non-whining alternative to actual staff

If it's the cost and the whining that are bothering you, buy a bunch of monkeys and chain them to keyboards all day - they will literally work for peanuts, and what they produce will be of similar usefulness as an AI that's been assigned to do a job.

[Like a badger]

Re: AI as the cheaper, non-whining alternative to actual staff

"buy a bunch of monkeys and chain them to keyboards all day "

That's not far off the sub-continental offshoring model. You contract with a local company for a fixed number of backsides on seats, you give the backsides a crap script that doesn't solve a lot of problems, and then instruct them to work a ten hour day (time shifted to UK times), and NOT to deviate from the script.

This is exactly what Virgin Media have done for years, I suspect they'll be at the forefront of crap AI customer service.

[ChipsforBreakfast]

Re: AI as the cheaper, non-whining alternative to actual staff

Virgin Media, Three, O2, almost every energy company.... just about everyone with a large enough customer base has tried this. The wise ones have realised it doesn't work and are now starting to reap the benefit of that realisation by hoovering up customers for whom yelling at the 'AI-powered' speech recognition system, pressing 1 so often you put yourself at risk of RSI and repeating yourself so frequently you begin to wonder if you're developing Alzheimer's has become too much to tolerate any more.

If you annoy customers long enough or badly enough they WILL punish you where it hurts most, your bottom line. AI's just another way to annoy customers.

[PCScreenOnly]

Costs

The cost with AI can be bonkers, but I guess the bean counters put that into a different bucket so it does not matter, even if it costs more overall

[Like a badger]

Re: Costs

100% that.

When a company (or government body) does something stupid that costs it more money than the system it replaced or simply doesn't work, the last thing it will ever do is 'fess up and put in place a better solution. Nope, the organisational norm is to plough on, declare success, throw good money after bad, stick fingers in ears, and fudge the reporting to hide the mess. I've seen this time and time again, and we see it often enough reported in the Reg.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once AI is given discretionary budget authority

AI sales agents will be tasked with influencing AI procurement agents by offering them tickets to e-sports events and paid-for GPU upgrades.

[IGotOut]

Fightback.

I'm telling all my artist friends to fight back and ruin AI theft.

If you have the power please start using nightshade to fuck up the models.

https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html

If you're an artist and can't do that, look at Glaze to help protect it.

[cookiecutter]

Bootlickers are out today

As ever the are people here who would support any culling, outsourcing, offshoring of any job....until it's theirs..

Who do these firms think are going to buy their products?! Offshored call centres doing level 1 stuff has decimated productivity of staff in large firms who now have to wait hours or days to fix even simple issues.....but the CEO has dedicated support & doesn't care.

Phone menus & minimum staff irritate the shit out of customers & offshored stayff who struggle with English are hated by customers. Yet it's cheap & as long as you're out and move on as a CEO..you're gravy.

Don't bitch about being on hold for an hour to any firm because the AI chatbit hasn't been programmed with your particular problem because the AI supported person who came up with the script is from another country or is 21 and thinks even 80 year olds should have the tech skills of a 3rd line support expert.

Short your stock on volkwagen, BMW, Mercedes. Tesla, in fact any car company. Any clothes firm that charges more than a couple of quid for a top. Whose going to be able to buy this stuff as wages are decimated?

Don't bitch when more CEOs are shot or billionaires robbed regularly or cities become no go areas as tax receipts collapse & government's can't afford the police or healthcare.

China's population with be 50% of what it is by 2100. India won't be far behind. Whose markets are you going to try to sell your tat to?

[Long John Silver]

Re: Bootlickers are out today

That has similar tenor to the views I expressed, but coming from a differing angle.

[Long John Silver]

Something prepared earlier

The following is a piece, under a different guise, I posted yesterday on RT as comment on a proposal by Zuckerberg for 'Meta' to initiate massive workforce lay-offs, the personnel displaced would be replaced by AI technology. The content carries across directly to potential UK experience.

-----------------------------------------------

Should not the massive shedding of jobs be considered an undesirable ‘externality’ arising from company management pursuing profit maximisation as its one and only aim (as modern business schools teach)?

Compare Zuckerberg’s intended mode of business to the USA fracking industry. The latter incurs many externalities in terms of polluting water supplies and general environmental damage. In theory, fracking operators are expected to right any wrongs they cause. In practice, they don’t and, in any case, they can let a subsidiary go bust, yet executives walk away with non-retractable bonuses.

Meta’s externality involves redundancies, and a diminished supply of positions for new entrants to the labour market. It, and similar from other corporate entities, entails a considerable societal impact. Perhaps Meta cannot provide solutions, but at societal level (i.e. through political apparatus) they can be sought. For instance, releasing people from mundane labour could result in offering them opportunities for personal cultural advancement, community involvement, and family caring roles. This can be facilitated by introducing a Universal Basic Income (UBI). Such can be funded by taxing the henceforth greater profits of Meta and similar. Increased productivity’s opportunity cost to other people is mitigated positively.

[frankyunderwood123]

I want to this to fail…

… but that’s my heart thinking.

The reality is business is going to see huge benefits and cost cutting due to AI.

Even at its current level, it can reduce headcount significantly.

By effectively automating the grunt work, more experienced staff can treat an AI assistant as if the work were done by a junior employee.

It will still need checking. It may take some time to get quality output, but it’ll likely be as good or better than junior level for most tasks, and far quicker.

There’s already been a lot of fallout in many sectors. Some of the first to fall have been translators and copywriters. An old friend of mine who has been a copywriter for 30 years can no longer get work.

We can make snidey comments about how businesses will fail due to AI over expectations, but you’d be a fool to dismiss the obvious.

AI is coming for your job, but you just may be lucky enough to hold on for a while if you are smart enough. Just long enough to help train the next generation of AI assistants.

What this means for the economy is anyone’s guess. Fun times ahead, maybe it’s time to learn a trade. Electricians are in demand where I live.

[RJW]

What the Government and our local Councils need is the AI Customer Run-around tool.

Instead of the Customer talking to real person, who then passes them onto the next department and so on, until the Customer gives up in frustration, thus preventing the Customer getting the help they need and hence saving the Council loads of money. This could all be done using AI. The AI answers the call, pretends to pass it onto another department, but just changes its voice.

Thus, saving Council staff doing this and also reducing the amount of time Council staff spend on giving the Customer the run-around.

[Locomotion69]

In my opinion there are two entities making money out of AI today. The first one is the AI service provider, the second one is the AI electronics manufacturer.

They make the most money out of AI today, but this is all "back-end".

I still struggle to find support for AI benefits in _any_ "front-end" application.

[s. pam]

Good thing StammeringMron and Thieves are all-in for AI

they'll have zero income tax received and a whopping big severance bill to deal with, combined with out-of-this-world software renewal charges!

i'm fucking retiring Tuesday, i'm sick of all the AI & ATS bullshit!

[Anonymous Coward]

End game?

I work for a business heavily invested in selling shiny AI things. Some of those shiny things are actually quite good (and aren't really AI but ML) and wont affect anyone's job, it's all virtuous and genuinely wholesome, the business benefits and no one is harmed.

Some other things are clearly insidious and have been developed with the sole pupose of replacing meatbags. Those selling these tools are actually a bit twitchy about this but are comforted by the weasel words of "people will upskill and new jobs will be created". Which doesn't really fit with the 40% of businesses will look to use AI to downsize.

It also makes a stupid assumption that everyone displaced by AI can be upskilled. Some people work in more junior positions doing simpler tasks because that's their limit. They can cope with call centre work, maybe are even good at it but that doesn't mean they can retrain as an AI data scientist.

And even assuming Brian from payroll is actually an underachieving potential academic who could retain as a hardcore AI wrangler, who's paying for that training and who is emplying a fresh AI graduate in a world where entry level; positions look for 5yr experience? The UK has a high tech skills shortage, not an unemployed people shortage. Which implies lots of those people don't have tech skills or cannot get them (academically or financially)?

I also wonder if every business is assuming that other businesses won't be paying off staff. If we're all replaced by AI who will be the customers? Who will have money to spend.

Can businesses survive if they only have other boardroom members to sell to, the rest of us grubbing in the bins?

[RJW]

Re: End game?

I fully agree with this statement:

I also wonder if every business is assuming that other businesses won't be paying off staff. If we're all replaced by AI who will be the customers? Who will have money to spend.

In the short time some companies may make money. But if the workforce is reduced across the board by say 20%, that's 20% more people on the dole, whose ability to consume products will be reduced, resulting in reduce income for companies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Train your kids as prostitutes and barmen.

[Random as if !]

It's the questions you ask

AI is better than my co workers, as I can frame the questions to give the answers I need, AI in the hands of an idiot, just gives a more confident idiot, and for $20 a month, yeah I'm with AI

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's the questions you ask

> AI is better than my co workers, as I can frame the questions to give the answers I need

You seem to be very confident that you are getting better answers from the AI than all your co-workers can provide. Yet you admit to being the one who is unable to frame a question when talking to a real person (unless you are really saying you can frame, and possibly reframe, the questions to get the AI to give you the answer the way that you want it to be).

> AI in the hands of an idiot, just gives a more confident idiot.

Now, do you see the conclusion that your two statements might lead us to?