My partner let go two people and replaced them with ChatGPT. No joke.
It can accelerate many business tasks e.g. copywriting, customer service, proof-reading, product design exploration, marketing campaigns etc.
And its ability to do all of this in multiple languages and in different tones can be a really big deal for some businesses.
Copywriting is definitely going to get decimated. Other jobs, like medical transcription, were already on the way out due to speech recognition tech even before generative AI blew up. And before people make "buggy whip manufacturer" arguments, the sheer pace of tech advancement is making wider sections of the populace unemployable faster than new job areas open up. I definitely think AI will cause the loss of millions of jobs, regardless of whether this particular CEO is running his company poorly.
There’s no way this is remotely legal, right? Unless it’s some sort of on-prem product?
> making wider sections of the populace unemployable faster than new job areas open up
This is a real threat to the fabric of society and will require us to rethink things like UBI and taxing the means of production rather labor.
> There’s no way this is remotely legal, right? Unless it’s some sort of on-prem product?
It's definitely legal, not sure why one would think it wouldn't be. There are dedicated, HIPAA-compliant medical transcription services that use voice-to-text tech that have been around for decades. I would say in the past 10 years or so the tech has gotten to the point where it's very good, and I know companies that have laid off transcriptionists because the tech is considerably cheaper.
The problem is that the vast majority of them are unable to do the things you can do with ChatGPT (writing copy, for example).
I've always wondered about that argument.
Weren't buggy whip manufacturers making lots of other things at the same time?
After all, a buggy whip is almost certainly used much longer by the new owner than a cars is, so I wouldn't expect a large amount of the economy to be comprised of buggy whip sales, because
a) Not many people had their own buggy (down need a buggy whip while riding a horse, only when a buggy is being pulled)
b) Those that owned a whip didn't replace them every 3-5 years anyway.
Did buggy whip sales go from 3% of GDP to nothing?
To me it always felt like a made-up "lesson" on how progress moves.
You can read some of the history of buggy whip makers. They were specialized manufacturers with established brands built around quality, special materials and style. Some were able to convert to new products but not all. They did survive a couple decades past the invention of the car, to your point, but once cars proliferated their sales cratered.
Whip manufacturers shouldn’t be shamed for hubris (what happened did not seem as guaranteed then as it now seems with hindsight) but they all would’ve done well to have converted into automobile manufacturing supply by the teens and many did not.
A link to get you started: https://civilwartalk.com/threads/what-company-made-the-last-...
I'm not contending that.
I'm saying (as far as I can determine) that cars sales alone in the US today is around 4% of the GDP. That doesn't count all the businesses employed in car manufacturing, all the businesses employed by the distribution network, by auto maintenance, ancilliary auto services (insurance, car washes, cosmetic finishing, upgrades, motorsport, etc).
My argument is that the demise of buggy whip manufacturers was accompanied by a significant expansion of employment. The replacement required much more labour than the thing it replaced.
If, at the time, buggy whip/saddlery/etc sales, distribution and manufacture collectively were the largest employers of labour, then the buggy whip argument makes sense.
I don't think it was.
And the jobs were the sort of generalist types you see in most small businesses and startups. Examples of tasks mostly involving writing e.g. emails to suppliers and customers, marketing copy for products/campaigns, website content. But also coming with potential new products and how they can be branded/marketed.
And the reason they were hired specifically is because most of the team doesn't have English or Mandarin as their first language and so they needed native speakers. And since ChatGPT's problem is inaccuracy not writing well it's really suited to them.