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Has the decline of knowledge work begun?

(www.nytimes.com)
388 points pseudolus | 1 comments | 25 Mar 25 17:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.26s | source
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Bukhmanizer ◴[26 Mar 25 19:14 UTC] No.43485838[source]▶
I’m surprised not many people talk about this, but a big reason corporations are able to do layoffs is just that they’re doing less. At my work we used to have thousands of ideas of small improvements to make things better for our users. Now we have one: AI. It’s not that we’re using AI to make all these small improvements, or even planning on it. We’re just… not doing them. And I don’t think my experience is very unique.
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1. Spooky23 ◴[26 Mar 25 22:55 UTC] No.43488414[source]▶
It’s not unique.

We’re coming out of a long growth period fueled by two decades of war and the inflation that came with it, first in asset values from ZIRP and then from the COVID capital infusions.

Look at where we sit economically, at least in the US. Real estate, a core economic and political engine is a bomb waiting to go off. Commercial real estate is totally underwater. Residential real estate is in another bubble. I won’t go into the madman in DC that’s gonna light the fuse.

Everyone knows it at some level, so projects are getting cancelled. Changes add value but create problems. Take away change and the implode demand for labor. Avoiding the need for marginal later lowers the marginal cost, so you start purging expensive people.