Microsoft AI CEO: 'Most, if not all' white-collar tasks can be replaced by AI within 12-18 months
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-ai-ceo-mustafa-suleyman-white-collar-tasks-automation-prediction-2026-2
80 points · 54 comments · view on lemmy.world
54 Comments
Visstix@lemmy.world · 55 pts · 203d
Start with the ceo's
otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 203d
His what, exactly?
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 203d
Tasks
Noite_Etion@lemmy.world · 51 pts · 203d
Careful everyone, the AI we made is about to fuck you all over... Anyways try copilot!
0ops@piefed.zip · 45 pts · 203d
They said that 12-18 months ago
nucleative@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 203d
I think the problem they cannot solve yet is a) knowing what to do and b) knowing when it's properly done.
The result is possibly more output per qualified human, but with your competition having the same tool, you're just keeping pace, not advancing.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 203d
But isn't that actually what most advancements have been? More things can be done with fewer people or fewer resources, competition gets it too, but overall, society advances.
The major problem is the whole needing to have a job thing. If we all profited from this, it would be awesome, wouldn't it
rozodru@piefed.world · 30 pts · 203d
yeah I remember a year ago when they said the same. They keep moving the goal posts because they HOPE it'll happen, but it's not going to. LLM's across the board, regardless of the company, have progressively become worse. They've sunk billions into something that simply isn't improving and they either don't know how to improve it or are just praying to whatever gods they believe in that it will some how magically get good.
There's nothing left to feed these things. For example you can go to Claude right now and ask it something so painfully simple that there's a strong chance it'll hallucinate a solution. not even a strong chance, a guaranteed chance. Like I just asked it "With the Fish Shell how can I get cat < notes.txt to work?" it didn't know how. it presented 3 options all of which were wrong. It claimed I was using an older version of Fish that doesn't support Heredocs. that's not true. Fish doesn't support Heredocs at all, period, and never has.
oktoberpaard@piefed.social · 5 pts · 203d
I agree that comments like this are just hype. However, this is what Claude responded first try when I asked it your question verbatim:
Fish doesn’t support the <<EOF heredoc syntax — that’s a Bash/POSIX feature. Here are your options in Fish: Use printf or echo:
Use begin/end with a string:
Use string with multiline input:
Or just call bash inline for a one-off heredoc:
The printf approach is generally the most idiomatic Fish way to do it.
Zier@fedia.io · 28 pts · 203d
Breaking newz: Microsoft AI CEO, replaced with an AI CEO. AI AI CEO! Sing along kids!
Juice@midwest.social · 13 pts · 203d
AI CEO!
AI CEO!
AI CEO! And Mecha Hitler was its name-o
Lugh@futurology.today · 28 pts · 203d
The cognitive dissonance it must take to usher in the conditions for a communist revolution, while simultaneously bankrolling Donald Trump, proves US Big Tech is run by people who are far less smart than they think they are.
Rothe@piefed.social · 27 pts · 203d
They are smart at one thing: shortsighted profit. That is all. Everything else is an irrelevant skill.
"Can you make our line go up?"
"Yes, but it will tank the economy and your company with it"
"So you can make our line go up? You're hired!"
Kraiden@piefed.social · 15 pts · 203d
FTFY
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 203d
True. I'm not going to let my children watch it, but I'll be sure they read about it. If it happens, that is. The billionaires could still wise up and get good at obeying laws and respecting the commons. Except maybe they can't because their parents didn't raise them right?
ViatorOmnium@piefed.social · 26 pts · 203d
Snake oil salesman: "Most illnesses cured by snake oil within 12-18 months"
Binturong@lemmy.ca · 25 pts · 203d
Firstly, citation needed on the evidence to support this wild claim, secondly that is NOT a good thing for society, only for corporate overlords, and only in the extraordinarily short term. If nobody has jobs, nobody has money, if nobody has money, who the fuck is buying your shit-ass products??? These allegedly brilliant CEO clearly failed Econ101, and I'm so fucking tired of having to hear their brain-dead takes that are just wish-casting to cope over the terrible investment they've gone all in on.
chuckleslord@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 203d
They didn't fail econ 101, everything they learned taught them to do this. They don't consider macroeconomics when making business decisions. It's all about this quarter, baby. If shit breaks, the government picks up the bill.
Binturong@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 203d
Sadly I think you're right, and that last part is the unsustainable part; I don't think any one of them considers what it means for them personally when this all hits the wall and comes to an abrupt halt. All those billions of dollars will be meaningless when the global economy shifts away from the US dollar as the reserve and you end up with trillion dollar bills like Zimbabwe. It's just economic suicide, even for the owners and CEOs, but they're so brain-rotted and coked out they can't or won't see it. If you ask me they belong in some sort of rehab program after their assets have been seized, or in jail. The amount of social harm done through jobs lost and economic devastation eclipses a thousand fold a street level murder, we need to start looking at financial crime differently.
Feyd@programming.dev · 17 pts · 203d
"CEO said something without any evidence or reason" articles that just parrot said CEO without any thought or analysis of any kind are completely pointless.
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub · 6 pts · 203d
It's why CEOs really like AI, they're both just saying whatever they think their customer wants to hear.
resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 203d
Wow, that’s a great point that you made! Let me take that under consideration!
paultimate14@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 203d
Is there anyone out there compiling a lost of all these hilariously wrong predictions that CEO's and billionaires make about science and technology?
Pretty sure I heard the same exact predictions back in 2020 when GPT3 rolled out.
Reminds me of how Musk predicts shit like "we'll be on Mars in 5 years" or "we will have fullly autonomous cars within 2 years" every few years.
hypnicjerk@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 203d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autonomous_Tesla_vehicles_by_Elon_Musk for the latter example
laranis@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 203d
Prove it. Do yours first.
just_another_person@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 203d
May you be the first
Taleya@aussie.zone · 11 pts · 203d
Mate, your job may be pure useless wank that cen be replaced with a virtual parrot, mine is not.
markovs_gun@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 203d
They've been saying this shit for the past 5 years. Idk how investors keep falling for this scam
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de · 9 pts · 203d
Sure buddy, right after full self driving probably. Maybe he should go and circlejerk it with Melon Husk.
reddig33@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 203d
cv_octavio@piefed.ca · 9 pts · 203d
rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 203d
Does he consider himself a blue collar worker or what?
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 203d
Red collar.
It's the blood of the working class that makes it red.
ICastFist@programming.dev · 1 pts · 203d
No no no, he and other chief whatevers are gold collar workers, because they're suuuuuuuper important and very hard to replace because they have so many skills!!!
billwashere@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 203d
Including CEOs
GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 203d
NOT_RICK@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 203d
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 203d
Yes. It's different this time because they've exhausted the cooling and compute power available on the planet. The adversity of the strong evidence that no breakthrough is possible with current tech will surely lead to a breakthrough.
Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 203d
Bro, you're a white collar worker
evenglow@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 203d
Or is he a rich owner?
Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 203d
Well, yeah. Of course the most useless and expensive white collar workers are going to be exempt. But a boy can dream...
verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.fr · 3 pts · 203d
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 203d
Hey look, an article about microslop and AI that’s not specifically about crazy-ass bugs introduced into the system or how its destroying the company.
HubertManne@piefed.social · 2 pts · 203d
I think I heard this 12 to 18 months ago.
Asafum@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 203d
"What will happen to all these people who can no longer work?
"...I'm sorry, do I look like someone who gives a shit about other people? Peasants die all the time, what's a few hundred million more?"
shittydwarf@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 203d
Clown-makeup-meme.jpg
ICastFist@programming.dev · 2 pts · 203d
Microslop is still desperately trying to sell their ai bullshit as the second coming of Jesus in cost savings. They know, and we know, that that's pure bullshit. They can feel shareholders breathing down their necks at all this spending on ai going nowhere.
StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 203d
I disagree, some of them genuinely believe the garbage coming out of their mouths
HeadfullofSoup@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 203d
CEO always take shitty decision and say shit that make no sense in that way AI with all the hallucination might be angood CEO replacement
fubarx@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 203d
Good thing there are openings in the "Physical Augmentation" division: https://www.engadget.com/transportation/doordashers-are-getting-paid-to-close-waymos-self-driving-car-doors-122711640.html
LifeLikeLady@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 203d
Can we start with him?
discocactus@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 203d
Do it. See what happens.
railcar@midwest.social · -2 pts · 203d
This will be unpopular, but he's almost right. Most white collar jobs could be automated to the point where minimal human oversight is needed, with technology we've had for a decade. It hasn't happened because developing that software has been prohibitively expensive.
What has changed is the cost of developing software for the "last mile" (logistics parlance) is dropping like a stone thanks to AI. This isn't entirely about AI doing your job, but AI analyzing your job and finally using normal procedural tech to automate it. Your role may be reduced to supervision.
For jobs that need actual cognitive power, the quasi-reasoning capability of LLMs will likely supplement your work, if it's not already. It's unlikely that high stakes reasoning will ever be 100% automated, but surely that's a judgement of the responsible party or more likely the irresponsible party.
This will create social upheaval and psychological torment for many. The obvious economic disaster of massive unemployment of educated people who are used to doing highly organized functions is making some people wring their hands. Certainly there should be a plan, but capital insists a race to the bottom immediately or risk being obsolete and worthless. First movers may cash out before everyone else loses their shirt.
fodor@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 203d
You're allowed to think whatever you want to think, but your belief without references is not convincing. And the counterpoint, which is my opinion, which is also just an opinion, is that AI salespeople can convince your boss that AI can replace you, but in reality it can't. But even if it could, what we actually find is that what typically happens is that other tangential jobs increase in number as technology rolls out. When cars hit the scene, we all of a sudden had a lot of people paving roads and doing oil changes and working at garages and stuff like that. All of which didn't exist to any scale before the automobile.
But I think you're right that AI could easily replace CEOs and all variety of company upper-level management because many of those people are just blindly gambling or accepting bribes or quid pro quo deals with their friends.
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 203d
It really isn't.
There's tons of proof-of-concept for all-in AI adoption, and it's all horror stories, unless it's ad copy. Those going all-in are getting hacked while alienating their customers.
AI made it so that more people can achieve the role of "shitty developer".
Shitty developers cost organizations an average of 4x their annual salary in medium term easily measured financial damage. Long term damage numbers are higher, but impossible to measure.
AI also makes real developers feel more productive while actually making them about 20% less productive.
The real thing driving down the cost of developers is that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Netflix and Disney know that plenty of us are too lazy to shop somewhere else, even when their shit stops working correctly - so they don't have to pay competent DevOps staff, anymore.
jacksilver@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 203d
You're not wrong that a lot of jobs end up being a lot of "busy work", but at the same time software and Ai don't exactly fill the gap as they stand today.
The issue with hardware is not only the cost to develop, but also it's fragility and inflexibility. Things can change fast in the real world and people are used to fill in the gaps.
While Ai could make software faster, it just isn't really there yet. When using Ai tools I consistently find that I'm consistently needing to lean on my experience on my field to get any significant value out of Ai, and many times it tries to lead me down dead ends.
All of that isn't even touching on the "meatspace" element of many jobs that Ai can not deal with at all.
railcar@midwest.social · 0 pts · 202d
I won't get into tit for tat internet debates anymore. Everything is conjecture here, we're trying to forecast the future. That said, I was a BIG SKEPTIC until a couple of months ago. Tech changes quickly. Whatever your opinion of Ai, or any advanced tech, re evaluate it every 6 months. I manage data science projects for a living, if that's worth anything. There's way too hype, but I caution against opposite but equal hubris.