In the 1980s, economist Robert Solow made an observation that reminded economists of today’s AI boom: “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.”
It had no impact on employment? What’s with the mass lay-offs at nearly every big software company recently, that just happened to coincide with their push for AI then?
Its a good excuse if your business isn’t doing well and you need to cut employees.
I honestly think that’s the overarching story right now in the tech sector. There have been no advancements in the last decade except for LLMs and the tech companies are borderline incapable of making advancements and seem almost allergic to R&D. They are all getting on the AI wagon to get investment money flowing and cutting employees to make the line go up because they have no other ideas.
In my experience, tech companies, especially b2b, just don’t innovate. They coast on existing products, and just sometimes reactively implement things enough customers are asking for explicitly.
It had no impact on employment? What’s with the mass lay-offs at nearly every big software company recently, that just happened to coincide with their push for AI then?
Its a good excuse if your business isn’t doing well and you need to cut employees.
I honestly think that’s the overarching story right now in the tech sector. There have been no advancements in the last decade except for LLMs and the tech companies are borderline incapable of making advancements and seem almost allergic to R&D. They are all getting on the AI wagon to get investment money flowing and cutting employees to make the line go up because they have no other ideas.
In my experience, tech companies, especially b2b, just don’t innovate. They coast on existing products, and just sometimes reactively implement things enough customers are asking for explicitly.