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Hacker News
There was an article in Forbes [1] that shared that it's not about jobs going away, but the steady creep of tasks being taken away from people and given to AI and automation. The point made is that AI is hollowing out jobs, leading to earlier (and often forced) retirement, the destruction of entry-level jobs, and the steady creep of winnowing out workers making things leaner.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronschmelzer/2026/07/14/ai-isnt...
by rexreed
Judging by the IT maturity of most of the companies I have worked with in the last 30 years, my guess is we're about 10-15 years from any serious changes, solely because adopting AI will require a few things. Most are running razor thin margins and wont be able to afford any of this, others have so much technical debt piled up that even if they could afford it they couldn't do anything without identifying ancient systems and then updating them.
Most people I deal with still struggle with basic things. These were the types of people that couldn't program a VCR back in the 80's. Yes eventually they may get left behind but they are the majority of the population.
I'm sure AI is all the rage in SV but everywhere else I go, no one gives a damn about any of this. I was just in Florida for work last week. 5 days and not one person I talked to brought AI up outside of a vendor trying to scare me about Mythos. It's just a nonissue for most people.
In time maybe that changes, but I still hear people arguing about "the cloud" which was over a decade ago at this point in terms of tech trends. Expecting any of these people to understand what skills are or MD files or MCP is unrealistic. They simply don't give a fuck.
by datakan
You still need handholding, you can’t just give a few junior devs Claude Opus 5 and expect them to recreate Instagram in a few weeks. Frontend and backend basics sure, but security, scale, etc. need prior knowledge.
by 650
Then what is causing hiring to be so low, or the layoffs? Just a soft job market in general? The economy is actually tanking, not just "AI" jobs.
Did hiring managers just pump the brakes "just in case this AI thing is real". So we should see some big spike in hiring now that we know AI isn't going to do everything?
Or, the actual real numbers of hiring, is for real an indicator that AI is already taking jobs, or reducing jobs. Teams of 5, can now be teams of 2 or 3.
Don’t expect The Guardian to report on AI taking jobs. Their audience wants to believe AI is failing and could never match their superior intellects.
Newsflash: AI is already remarkably good at replacing the exact office and civil service paper-pushing they do every day.
It still doesn't seem to work all that well for tasks which don't have a short feedback loop.
by mono442
Agentic coding only became reasonably decent this past December. Even in tech, most organizations that have adopted the tools are still trying to understand how capable they are and how to use them.
Point is it's too early to declare what the effect will be. It can take years for large organizations to change the way of doing things. The only sure-fire way to speed that up is if they suddenly start losing market-share. Otherwise, it's all herd-following and complacency in the majority of companies.
by rybosworld
All I know is that trying to get a job now is being way more brutal than before. The closest thing I got this month was a scam email from an alleged "independent global senior recruiter" "currently supporting a confidential search for a company developing AI-powered digital products". The made-with-ai smell was all over the place, the company in mention allegedly was adobe, and am pretty sure they got my email from the "who wants to be hired?" posts in here.
by Gualdrapo
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- Hacker News
- There was an article in Forbes [1] that shared that it's not about jobs going away, but the steady creep of tasks being taken away from people and given to AI and automation. The point made is that AI is hollowing out jobs, leading to earlier (and often forced) retirement, the destruction of entry-level jobs, and the steady creep of winnowing out workers making things leaner.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronschmelzer/2026/07/14/ai-isnt...
by rexreed - Judging by the IT maturity of most of the companies I have worked with in the last 30 years, my guess is we're about 10-15 years from any serious changes, solely because adopting AI will require a few things. Most are running razor thin margins and wont be able to afford any of this, others have so much technical debt piled up that even if they could afford it they couldn't do anything without identifying ancient systems and then updating them.
Most people I deal with still struggle with basic things. These were the types of people that couldn't program a VCR back in the 80's. Yes eventually they may get left behind but they are the majority of the population.
I'm sure AI is all the rage in SV but everywhere else I go, no one gives a damn about any of this. I was just in Florida for work last week. 5 days and not one person I talked to brought AI up outside of a vendor trying to scare me about Mythos. It's just a nonissue for most people.
In time maybe that changes, but I still hear people arguing about "the cloud" which was over a decade ago at this point in terms of tech trends. Expecting any of these people to understand what skills are or MD files or MCP is unrealistic. They simply don't give a fuck.
by datakan - You still need handholding, you can’t just give a few junior devs Claude Opus 5 and expect them to recreate Instagram in a few weeks. Frontend and backend basics sure, but security, scale, etc. need prior knowledge.by 650
- Then what is causing hiring to be so low, or the layoffs? Just a soft job market in general? The economy is actually tanking, not just "AI" jobs.
Did hiring managers just pump the brakes "just in case this AI thing is real". So we should see some big spike in hiring now that we know AI isn't going to do everything?
Or, the actual real numbers of hiring, is for real an indicator that AI is already taking jobs, or reducing jobs. Teams of 5, can now be teams of 2 or 3.
- Don’t expect The Guardian to report on AI taking jobs. Their audience wants to believe AI is failing and could never match their superior intellects.
Newsflash: AI is already remarkably good at replacing the exact office and civil service paper-pushing they do every day.
- It still doesn't seem to work all that well for tasks which don't have a short feedback loop.by mono442
- Agentic coding only became reasonably decent this past December. Even in tech, most organizations that have adopted the tools are still trying to understand how capable they are and how to use them.
Point is it's too early to declare what the effect will be. It can take years for large organizations to change the way of doing things. The only sure-fire way to speed that up is if they suddenly start losing market-share. Otherwise, it's all herd-following and complacency in the majority of companies.
by rybosworld - All I know is that trying to get a job now is being way more brutal than before. The closest thing I got this month was a scam email from an alleged "independent global senior recruiter" "currently supporting a confidential search for a company developing AI-powered digital products". The made-with-ai smell was all over the place, the company in mention allegedly was adobe, and am pretty sure they got my email from the "who wants to be hired?" posts in here.by Gualdrapo