Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT

I think it is possible that the widespread introduction of ChatGPT will cause a brief hiatus on hiring due to the inelasticity of demand. For the sake of argument, imagine that ChatGPT makes your average developer 4x more productive. It will take a while before the expectation becomes that 4x more work is delivered. That 4x more work is scheduled in sprints. That 4x more features are developed. That 4x more projects are sold to clients/users. When the demand eventually catches up (if it exists), the hiring will begin again.

We just shipped a major feature on our SaaS product. We, of course, used AI extensively.

The thing is, this feature leaned on every bit of experience and wisdom we had as a team --things like making sure the model is right, making sure the system makes sense overall and all the pieces fit together properly.

I don't know that "4x" is how it works --in this case, the AI let us really tap into the experience and skill we already had. It made us faster, but if we were missing the experience and wisdom part, we'd just be more prolific at creating messes.

But presumably you could have built it before, just slower, which is the point. For now, that speed-up just looks like a win because it’s novel, but eventually the speed-up will be baked into people’s expectations.

> For now, that speed-up just looks like a win because it’s novel, but eventually the speed-up will be baked into people’s expectations.

It will still be a win: the rewards for the new productivity have to go somewhere in the economy.

Just like other productivity improvements in the past, it will likely be shared amongst various stakeholders depending on a variety of factors. The workers will get the lion's share.

> The workers will get the lion's share.

This doesn’t seem to be supported by history.

Labour share have GDP has held roughly constant throughout the ages, even as we saw massive productivity increases since the dawn of the industrial revolution.

How does that equate to the workers receiving the lion's share of the massive productivity increases?

Statistics like https://media.equality-trust.out.re/uploads/2024/07/incomedi... suggest that since 1970 the top 10% have profited more in their income than the bottom 50%.