Senate Dem Report Finds Almost 100 Million Jobs Could Be Lost To AI (thehill.com)
- Reference: 0179686400
- News link: https://politics.slashdot.org/story/25/10/06/2342256/senate-dem-report-finds-almost-100-million-jobs-could-be-lost-to-ai
- Source link: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5541307-ai-automation-job-replacement/
> A Senate report [1]released (PDF) Monday says AI and automation [2]could replace nearly 100 million jobs across various industries over the next decade . The report, conducted by Democratic staffers on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), outlines how AI and automation will impact the American economy and workforce. Sanders, the ranking member on the HELP Committee, has warned of the consequences widespread use of AI and automation can have for workers.
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> As part of their investigation, staffers asked ChatGPT, OpenAI's chatbot, to predict the impact of AI and automation on certain industries. Of the 20 workforces ChatGPT said would be most affected by the technological rush, 15 will see more than half of their workforces replaced by AI and automation over the next decade. The workforce most impacted will be fast food and counter employees. According to the report, more than 3 million fast food and counter workers will be replaced over the next 10 years, accounting for 89 percent of the workforce.
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> Other workforces that will be significantly affected include customer service representatives, laborers and freight, stock and material movers and secretaries and executive assistants -- not including legal, medical and executive positions. The report said that 83 percent, 81 percent and 80 percent of those workforces, respectively, will be replaced in the next decade. [...] Sanders, in a [3]Fox News op-ed published Monday, doubled down on the report's findings, saying increased technological capacity risks "dehumanizing" individuals. "We do not simply need a more 'efficient' society," Sanders said. "We need a world where people live healthier, happier and more fulfilling lives."
[1] https://www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/10.6.2025-The-Big-Tech-Oligarchs-War-Against-Workers.pdf
[2] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5541307-ai-automation-job-replacement/
[3] https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/sen-sanders-ai-benefit-everyone-not-just-handful-billionaires
Hype? (Score:5, Insightful)
I do believe that AI will lead to significant dislocation of workers. But the committee's asking AI to assess AI is GIGO. AI is trained to foster AI, generate additional interaction, etc. Not exactly a dispassionate assessment. I believe AI is in the overhype part of the tech cycle, and we will see some moderating of expectations as many of these AI companies are shattered by not being able to deliver on their over-promises
Re:Hype? (Score:4, Insightful)
> I do believe that AI will lead to significant dislocation of workers.
> But the committee's asking AI to assess AI is GIGO. AI is trained to foster AI, generate additional interaction, etc. Not exactly a dispassionate assessment.
> I believe AI is in the overhype part of the tech cycle, and we will see some moderating of expectations as many of these AI companies are shattered by not being able to deliver on their over-promises
"AI" (which isn't really AI, but )... is indeed being overhyped. But it's also still going to kill millions of jobs that won't be replaced by new jobs. Both things can be true at the same time. And while AI will indeed create some new jobs "caring and feeding" for AI, it'll kill off far more in other fields that will never be made up, unlike, say, when the Model T largely replaced the horse and buggy. A major reason for what we're calling AI is to replace human jobs in order for companies to save money on human expenses. It's why these companies backed AI in the first place. Shareholder Value Uber Alles.
Unlikely... (Score:3)
1. AI is hallucinating
2. People will manipulate AI
So there will be millions of people needed to watch the AI and try to avoid manipulating it.
After a few spectacular failures the security cost of AI will go high and keep more people at their jobs...
Re:Unlikely... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a key part everyone seems to ignore, there are levers for the inner workings of AI and it will be manipulated to bend to it's benefactors "truths", look at Grok.
Re: (Score:3)
> This is a key part everyone seems to ignore, there are levers for the inner workings of AI and it will be manipulated to bend to it's benefactors "truths", look at Grok.
Offload all critical thinking to our free service. What could possibly go wrong?
Re: (Score:3)
You're underestimating people's tolerance for slop.
I foresee a future where random things happen in a computer system and people just shrug, say "that's just the AI," and move on. Think Brazil--the computer says you're under arrest, so you're under arrest--but infinitely worse. This is happening now. But, it's just the cost of efficiency. Nobody is going to want to pay for "oversight" when it's cheaper to just sweep it under the rug.
Re: (Score:2)
> You're underestimating people's tolerance for slop.
> I foresee a future where random things happen in a computer system and people just shrug, say "that's just the AI," and move on. Think Brazil--the computer says you're under arrest, so you're under arrest--but infinitely worse. This is happening now. But, it's just the cost of efficiency. Nobody is going to want to pay for "oversight" when it's cheaper to just sweep it under the rug.
Nobody will pay for oversight unless the AIs start pointing the finger at the broligarchs themselves. Then all of a sudden guardrails will become the most important thing in the universe.
If you read the report summary (Score:2, Troll)
They're not talking about llms alone they're talking about basically every form of modern automation.
So all the machine learning stuff and all the crazy stuff they are doing with robotics and lider and advanced sensors and computer assisted vision and self-driving vehicles. Basically everything more complex than a modern industrial robot.
Basically it's all the stuff you can do with advanced paralyzed computing made possible by gpus and custom silicon that does what gpus do but better.
Honestly it'
Re: If you read the report summary (Score:2)
A paralyzed computer just might be able to sing some lider.
Self Check Out kiosks will lose their jobs! (Score:3)
AI will replace them, and all those kiosks will be out on the street soon.
Re: Self Check Out kiosks will lose their jobs! (Score:2)
Holding a "Homeless. Anything helps. God bless." sign. Next to a Redbox and a few starving payphones.
All those saddle maker jobs gone. (Score:1, Flamebait)
Oh the humanity. Back when cars replaced horses, all the saddle making jobs vanished! All those jobs just gone, never to return. It's so horrible that so many people are still out of work without those key saddle making jobs.
Yeah, new, different jobs instantly appeared because:
JOBS ARE NOT CREATED NOR DESTROYED
They are merely disrupted.
We live in an ocean of jobs just waiting to be filled. I want someone to build a Space Elevator. I want a dating app that actually works, rather than the incredibly crapp
Re: (Score:2)
There used to be around 1,400,000 telephone operators at the peak in the 1950s whose sole job it was to make manual connections on a switchboard to route a phone call from one phone to another. Now there are zero thanks to automation. Before the industrialization of textiles, a majority of households had a spinning wheel. Across Europe it's likely that 10s of millions of spinners made thread to feed looms. How many folks are employed as spinners now? Only a few who practice their trade in historical parks
Re: (Score:3)
Ah yes, the "it's always happened like this so it always will" argument. I would suggest this time around AI is a bit different since it's going after a shit ton more then just a single industry's jobs.
The Dems are special (Score:2)
The Dems solution is to get more migrants in.
And people wonder why no one is voting for them anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
Poor people compete with illegal immigrants for jobs and rent. So yes, they are related.
Sniff test (Score:3)
I am also in the camp that thinks we're in for major and damaging disruption in the job market, due to AI and other automation technology. But the notion that 100 million jobs will be lost in the next 10 years, out of a total workforce of 170 million, doesn't pass the sniff test to me.
I don't think much of their methodology, either. Asking ChatGPT about the potential effects of AI/Automation doesn't mean much unless you then also examine whatever sources ChatGPT can cough up. Most committee staffers are lawyers of one sort or another; surely they've heard the [1]cautionary tales [slashdot.org] of what happens when you use LLM outputs uncritically. One can get ChatGT to claim the sky is green, or that you (yes, you!) are the messiah, if you [2]give it the right prompt [google.com].
[1] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/09/22/1919236/california-issues-historic-fine-over-lawyers-chatgpt-fabrications
[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=chatgpt+confirmation+bias
Re: Sniff test (Score:2)
Congressional staffers alarmed at the impact of AI on congressional staff asks ChatGPT to do their research and extrapolates impact on staff reduction to the general population. Yep, checks out.
So they aren't quite talking about AI (Score:1)
Not like we think about it. When us slashdotters hear AI we mean llms and chatbots. They're talking about all advanced software automation.
Basically they're including modern robotics and self-driving cars.
That makes sense if you are talking to the public at large because to the public at large AI is just everything more advanced than a modern industrial robot.
If you extend the definition of AI and make it that broad then yeah there are 100 million jobs at risk.
And the real problem is that yo
Re: (Score:2)
You're not completely wrong about this, but a couple points to consider: 1) the [1]US unemployment rate [stlouisfed.org] is around 4%, 2) I've been doing industrial automation for the last 25 years, and the technology gains in this industry are both incremental and expensive, and 3) automation is capital intensive, and the cost of capital has risen drastically in recent years and most of this is due to demographic factors that aren't going to change very soon.
If you decided to build a self-driving long haul trucking or last mi
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU04000024
Re: (Score:2)
> Usually reports like this are used to support some policy proposal. What's the proposal?
It's in the report:
Moving to a 32-Hour Workweek with No Loss in Pay; Today, American workers are over 400% more productive than they were in the 1940s. Yet, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages than they were decades ago. A 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay would reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life.
Sharing Corporate Profits with Workers; Large corporations should be required to distribute at least 20% of their stock to wor
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm, this does smell like old-school democrats, finally cluing in that they need to go after the populist vote. As an "elite" myself, this isn't something I would vote for, since as an engineer I typically benefit from globalization and low wages, and like most upper-middle class I have a significant tax-sheltered retirement savings plan that I want to grow, but if the dems want to win the next election, then I admit that this "common folk vs. the elite" stuff is the kind of message that sells right now.
Re: (Score:2)
Historically Democrats are better for the economy on many fronts, rich to poor.
It's Republican media messaging that gets them their unearned impression they're better on economics but the numbers simply don't back it up. Their constant culture war barrage distractions is continuing to work apparently though.
[1]https://www.epi.org/press/new-... [epi.org]
[1] https://www.epi.org/press/new-report-finds-that-the-economy-performs-better-under-democratic-presidential-administrations/
Re: (Score:2)
I'm glad to see employee ownership in there as I work for an employee owned company and it really is great. I just really like the fact that when I do something that makes the company run better or do better financially I'm earning more money both for myself and my coworkers. It works well with capitalism (our company is small but successful) while providing workers some level of ownership to their work.
Customer service chat bots all stink (Score:2)
Right, i havent been successful at getting a customer service chatbot to do anything useful other than give up and give me to a human to get the issue resolved. Sure it can give account balance, bill due date, etc low impact stuff but how many folks call for that stuff.
Anyone else?
Re: (Score:2)
Our network help desk now has an AI chatbox. Called it, and it doesn't know what "Windows" is.
COULD it? Maybe (Score:1)
COULD AI replace 100 million jobs in the next 10 years? Perhaps. WILL it? Not very likely. AI still falls down pretty regularly. That said, it's not AI that's going to eliminate those jobs; it's management that will. The moment they THINK AI can do the job they'll get rid of those expensive pesky humans and replace them with AI. In many cases they'll learn that the AI isn't ready yet, but at that point it may be too late to re-hire the humans to come back and fix it.
But capitalism rewards lower costs, not h
Fine, let it start with them (Score:2)
CongressAI - has a nice ring to it.
What you do has an effect (Score:2)
If you help the billionaires steal intellectual property from hard-working people, and sell it for a profit, you will be responsible for it.
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed. Most readers won't be ancient enough to remember stenographer pools, mechanical typewriters, and telegrams. They'll have seen video but that cannot convey lived experience. They won't have experienced the transition between manual machine tools and vastly mor capable CNC machining, but we all live in the outcomes.
Post-slop AI (which will take a while and whose improvement will not be uniform) like CNC machine tools will empower imagination like any effective tool. It will also be misused like every