Amazon Cloud Chief Says Replacing Junior Staff With AI is 'Dumbest' Idea (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0178769432
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/08/19/1838224/amazon-cloud-chief-says-replacing-junior-staff-with-ai-is-dumbest-idea
- Source link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-cloud-chief-says-replacing-044140962.html
> The Amazon Web Services CEO said on an episode of the "Matthew Berman" podcast published Tuesday that replacing entry-level staff with AI tools is "one of the dumbest things I've ever heard."
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> "They're probably the least expensive employees you have. They're the most leaned into your AI tools," he said. "How's that going to work when you go like 10 years in the future and you have no one that has built up or learned anything?" Garman said companies should keep hiring graduates and teaching them how to build software, break down problems, and adopt best practices.
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> He also said the most valuable skills in an AI-driven economy aren't tied to any one college degree. "If you spend all of your time learning one specific thing and you're like, 'That's the thing I'm going to be expert at for the next 30 years,' I can promise you that's not going to be valuable 30 years from now," he said.
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-cloud-chief-says-replacing-044140962.html
Ten years from now? (Score:3)
Typical high-level exec:
"Ten years in the future, I won't be working here anymore. What do I care?"
Re: Ten years from now? (Score:3)
Itâ(TM)s a valid point. If you use AI to replace juniors and rely on seniors to make sure the AI isnâ(TM)t producing garbage, youâ(TM)re going to immediately run into issues when those seniors move on and the people coming in to replace them have no ability to provide checks and balances.
Using AI to help generate remedial code can be a good productivity boost, but expecting it to replace your workforce is ridiculously shortsighted.
Right idea. (Score:2)
Yep, AI should replace their most expensive employees - the C-suite.
Re: (Score:2)
We had mission statement generators and other assorted bullshit engines on the web already at 2000's, if not earlier. Turns out all you need to do the job of an exec is generative grammatics e.g. Chomsky, all of which was already sorted out in the 70's.
In pretty much every other field of human endeavour, except a few more like public relations and politics, you need your utterances to actually mean something. A lack of meaning or misrepresentation will come back to haunt you. Not so much on the top of the l
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> Yep, AI should replace their most expensive employees - the C-suite.
I am just waiting for the first board of directors to realize this.
Aye replace youre ceo's etc with Ai (Score:2)
Bigger saving and you can't tell the difference in the garbage they sprout!
No one has learned anything (Score:2)
> "How's that going to work when you go like 10 years in the future and you have no one that has built up or learned anything?"
As if good IT people ever stop learning things. Pretty short sighted to focus on new(er) / cheap(er) employees, simply for their AI tools experience, over people who have more overall and relevant experience, who can add AI tools to that. But, you know, management ... Two less-experienced people at half the price of one more-experienced person isn't necessarily the deal it seems -- especially if the former is narrow and the latter is broad, 'cause you never know what kinds of problems will arise.
Guess who is next to get replaced with AI? (Score:3)
Yup. I predict this guy's job will probably be next on the chopping block.
Re: (Score:2)
Bezos has probably already called Jassy and told him to dump this guy because he's not maximizing the value of Bezos' Amazon holdings.
Solution is simple: replace senior staff (Score:3)
Since replacing entry-level staff with AI tools is "one of the dumbest things ever," the solution to using AI is simple: replace senior staff.
Start with CEOs, and then everybody in the the C-Suite. Bonus, this way you get the greatest savings, since you're replacing the most highly paid people.
CEO make sense. (Score:4, Insightful)
Hard to believe a CEO that says something intelligent. I am so used to them making jack asses of themselves. But this guy has a brain..
The world does not stay the same. Employment skills cease to be essential in a decade and in 30 years they become automated. The smart people learn new skills every year. That is what keeps you employed.
And he is totally right about training your employees. The hardest thing in the world is to find competent people. If you find them you need to keep them. When their job gets eliminated, move them someplace else within your company. If your company doesn't have a place for them then you need to expand your company and you have not been doing that.
The entire IT industry for the last 20 years (Score:2)
Has been about one thing and one thing alone which is compartmentalizing work so that no individual worker is irreplaceable.
They want us to be cogs so they can cheaply swap Us in and out like cogs
Re: (Score:2)
yeah that worked well!!
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Does it take a unique skillset to unclog a paper jam at the printer or plug in a network cable? No.
It's not just layoffs (Score:2)
They are cutting the dumbest junior devs, at least what I saw my company's layoffs
Expertise (Score:2)
'That's the thing I'm going to be expert at for the next 30 years,' I can promise you that's not going to be valuable 30 years from now,"
I dunno. I got started programming Acorn Risk Machines and here I am 30 years later making a decent living off of it.
How does it work? (Score:4, Insightful)
> "How's that going to work when you go like 10 years in the future and you have no one that has built up or learned anything?"
Well, by exercising stock options and with the parachute it’s 9 figures for me, and I’ve been gone 9 years at that point so who cares? -CEO
Re:How does it work? (Score:5, Informative)
I had a manager at Oracle (Ken Ross) that made his numbers and got a $40K quarterly bonus by billing customers for work that hadn't actually been done, then transferring to another division, leaving me to get blamed for the work that was never started despite the customer having been billed for half of it already. So yeah, they absolutely think that way, as long as they get paid and get out, they don't care what kind of mess they leave behind.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, that's fucking dirty.
They ever shitcan that asshole?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know. They shitcanned me for complaining about it.
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Incredible. Appears the rumors about working for Oracle were true. Sorry to hear that.
Re: (Score:3)
Given your handle, I would hope you remember Cover Oregon:
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_Oregon
Re: How does it work? (Score:2)
After seeing all of the bullshit sales tactics Oracle uses (Audit, Bargain, Cloud) I'd never work for that company. Their culture is rotten to the core.
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Well, you are talking about Oracle.
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Totally true