ChatGPT has caused a drop in demand for online digital freelancers | Hacker News Reader

ChatGPT has caused a drop in demand for online digital freelancers

techradar.com

41 pointsolalonde13 comments

Not sure I buy this. There was a massive drop in demand for these jobs due to layoffs but we (Ritza, a technical writing agency) have noticed a reverse of that since July last year which is where their data goes up to. I wonder if they can easily rerun with more recent data and see if the hypothesis holds

> We analyze data from a leading global online freelancing platform consisting of 1,386,642 job posts from July 2021 to July 2023. Using a network clustering algorithm and leveraging detailed job post descriptions on skill and software requirements, we categorize job posts into distinct clusters. These clusters can then be classified into three main categories: manual-intensive jobs (e.g., data entry, video services, and audio services), automation-prone jobs (e.g., writing, engineering, soft- ware, app, and web development), and image-generating jobs (e.g., graphic design and 3D modeling). Based on the AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Index constructed by Felten et al. (2021, 2023), these types of jobs show distinct susceptibilities to large language model AI tools.2 Manual-intensive jobs have notably smaller AIOE compared to automation-prone jobs, indicating lower exposure to Large Language Models (LLMs). We study the differential impacts of the introduction of GenAI tools on demand across these different types of job clusters

Already seeing content writing freelancers struggling to secure work on Facebook. Improvements to Gen AI will only exacerbate this problem going forward.

can't imagine the chaos unfolding in high school and college freshman English composition classes, where for the sake of grading ease, "fairness" and simplicity (and more than any of these, instructor complacency) students are encouraged and incentivizes to write in a very mechanical and formulaic style near perfectly emulated by the default behavior of ChatGPT and friends.

Training, rewarding (and thus selecting for opportunity in favor of) people who optimize for and pride themselves on mechanical precision and speed in their work is setting them up to be defeated by the actual machines they will be competing against in the market.

I'm unimpressed by the researcher saying "I'm sure they'll all find new opportunities" without backing it up with any research.

Also if you build a brand, that's what triggers your replacement. At the point where your style is codified to the point where a human can recognize it, that's the point at which AI does the style the way you do and you are replaced

Tangential, who knows serious facts about job losses from AI? That research is rare IME and is drowned by headlines about, say, MS boasting of AI powered layoffs.

"Automation-prone fields like [...] software"

I wonder where is this idea coming from?

Well a big portion of freelancers are writers, SEO content specialists, graphic design and marketing so it makes sense. Slop will replace quite a bit of that

Just remember, most of us are simply increasing the ROI of our millionaire/billionaire class overlords while we make modest gains in the ever shrinking middle class.

Had technology induced productivity gains been distributed as they were proportionally in the 60s, the average wage in the US would be 6 figures.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

Intel 4004 was introduced in 1971.

In my opinion, most of the gains in productivity since than can be attributed to automation.

would that 6 figures be as meaningful as 6 figures was when that was the “dream”.

Good question, if you consider the entire world as static, and slightly adjust the wealth accumulation at the top to create this adjustment, it’s arguably true that the money would be even more valuable, as the US middle class spends the most and fuels the world economy, and they would be wealthier in this scenario.

That’s why there are a couple billionaires trying to get this to happen, because they think everyone would be better off. The issue is that the entire financial system has been adjusted over the last 50 years to outsmart everyone else and create this accumulation.

Also, if wealth inequality creates unrest, and unrest weakens the dollar, then our current situation is worse on multiple fronts.

Does this coincide with the interest rate hikes and the induced layoffs and conservative hiring practices because of it? No, really? What a surprise!

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