A typical information technology innovation creates new jobs for employees in the IT sector, while someone else on the other side of the city loses their job, influence, or half of their income – accountants, taxi drivers, journalists. With generative AI it is different. Since it is based on text, it naturally affects professions that are based on language – programmers, journalists, and lawyers. In this case too, journalists are on the list of those affected, but this time programmers are also on that list.
For decades, programmers have been trying to make processes ever more productive – optimizing data flows and automated processes, reusing existing code. That is why a new automatic text completer, a co-pilot or applications based on artificial intelligence that generate text according to a requested tone rather than technical details, fit so easily into the systems that programmers have been developing for many years. Journalists and lawyers do not have such an infrastructure that could absorb rapid change.
Depending on where you get your information, there are between 25 and 50 million programmers in the world. For comparison – there are about five million lawyers worldwide (although no one really knows the exact number) and possibly one million journalists (even harder to name a precise number). That is why the process of software development is the best base to test what happens when generative AI starts tinkering with the art of creation.
We have lived with generative AI for three years now, and that is long enough to draw conclusions about its impact. What exactly is changing under its influence?
The IT job market mirage
Each job listing receives thousands of applications, yet there are still not enough employees. How is it possible that eight vacancies attract 23,000 candidates, but companies still complain about a lack of talented workers? Very simply – because 22,992 applications were simply unsuitable. Job seekers use ChatGPT to make their applications more attractive or even to lie in them, while HR uses the same ChatGPT to detect such tricksters. In this way, a duel of prompts and commands to artificial intelligence replaces dialogue between living people.
Competition in the IT job market varies from country to country. It is highest in the USA and the United Kingdom, but in Latvia the situation may be significantly different.
AI as scapegoat
Everything is being blamed on artificial intelligence, but in reality the changes in the availability of money should be blamed. During the Covid pandemic years, money was practically free; now it has value again and that brings with it a more serious attitude toward economic processes. It is as if gravity disappeared for several years and, when it returned, we were forced to learn how to walk again. Blaming artificial intelligence for job cuts is like blaming the thermometer because you have a fever.
The vanishing engineer
You can receive thousands of applications and still not find the specialist you need. HR departments have started hunting for new employees in competing companies instead of leafing through piles of applications. When companies themselves search for the needed specialist, the success rate is higher than when the specialist is looking for an employer. Truly good IT engineers exist, but they are like rare trophies that can only be obtained by those who know where they dwell. When hiring someone now, reliability and loyalty are valued even more highly than talent.
“when everyone can program, only the inquisitive and curious will be regarded as masters“
These processes are comparable to what is happening in journalism. Since anyone who is not too lazy can publish on X, Substack and Medium, the quality bar has been raised, not lowered. The best journalistic work now competes with a huge volume of civic journalism.
I predict the same trends in programming – what we used to call “programming” will cease to be that. Running a blog is not journalism, and no matter how functionally similar it is, creating an app with the help of Lovable will not be considered programming, and demand for professional programmers will only grow.
Routine work will disappear; only complex, creative work carried out by irreplaceable humans will remain.
The collapse of the remote‑work utopia
“Collapse” may be too strong a word, but such a trend is visible. As often happens in our society, a few lousy players spoiled the whole party. The first cases that signaled the decline of the remote‑work concept were when people were caught working remotely for several employers at once. The latest trend – different people were taking part in different stages of the same remote job interview. It was easy to prevent such cheating – employers started recording interviews and comparing faces. But trust in this concept had already been undermined.
Still, remote work continues to make sense – commuting is a waste of time and money, and a good employer will find a balance between remote work and long‑distance travel. Feeling a shortage in the labor market, Apple and Amazon have shifted their attitude from treating remote work as a human right to a concept of “work where you can add the greatest value to what you do.” Smaller companies will keep experimenting.
We will have to trust in trust
So what can survive in this purgatory of the labor market? Reliability and loyalty. Think of it as throughput. Put as few obstacles as possible in the path of a potential employee towards getting the job, but extend the applicable probation period. Spend less time poring over a candidate’s CV and checking the information reflected in it. Today, talent hides behind algorithms, not job applications. And when you finally find someone truly good, reward those who trained that person, not only those who found and brought them to you. Because in the automation economy, the only thing that still creates value is the knowledge we share with others. Or, as Wilde would say – experience is that ruthless teacher that sends a full bill for every single hour.
Originally published at https://inc-baltics.com/darba-tirgu-valda-haoss-kaut-bezdarbs-sasniedzis-zemakos-limenus/
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