HackiNews

• saithound
  If mainstream corporate America thought it would turn increasingly cheap intelligence into higher revenue growth and higher profit margins, then mainstream corporate America needs to go back to school.

  If you want to increase your profit margins, you'll have to innovate! Adopting AI tools that somebody else created, and are equally available to your competitors, won't increase your revenue or margins. The ones who will see increased revenue and profit margins are the ones who actually innovated, by creating the AI.

  This is exactly what Apollo reports: the Magnificent Seven increased their profit margins, while mainstream corporate America didn't.

  • nfw2
    > Adopting AI tools that somebody else created, and are equally available to your competitors, won't increase your revenue or margins

    The only way more efficient operations doesn't make margins go up is if prices go down. Is that what we're seeing?

    • saithound
      Answering your factual question: Yes, of course, software is cheaper in real terms now, even despite high inflation! See e.g.

      https://www.accelerance.com/blog/2026-outsourcing-rate-trend...

      https://www.reuters.com/world/india/ai-reshapes-indias-it-se...

      > The only way more efficient operations doesn't make margins go up is if prices go down.

      But in general, it is not true that more efficient operations + unchanged margins = observable lower prices. Especially when the mere existence of a technology can make non-adopters' processes overall less efficient. For example, if there is a RAM shortage, and storage becomes more expensive, then SaaS subscription prices will increase, even if all vendors adopt AI to make their operations more efficient.

      • bradknowles
        Cheaper per line of code, maybe. But now you’ve got a billion more lines of code, compared to when you previously only had one line of code.

        So now you’ve got to maintain and manage all those new lines of code, which becomes a huge O&M budget problem. And it’s the wrong color of money.

        And all that money you think you saved now has to get paid out the other end — with oodles of interest.

        This is going to be a very expensive lesson for companies to learn. You can’t just vibe code your way into the future in any kind of a sustainable way.

        • saithound
          > Cheaper per line of code, maybe.

          Cheaper as in the customer who wants to _buy_ software is not willing to pay a high price for it.

          It might become a massive problem for the people who use AI to _sell_ software, I don't think we disagree on that.

  • d0liver
    Not really. Like, yes, relative to your competitors. But, if the cost of growing potatoes is ten cents per potato, and then I make something that can produce potatoes for one cent then I'd expect everyone to just have more potatoes. This would drive down the cost of potatoes, because the supply would be saturated eventually, but AI is supposed to just make more of everything. So, if AI works as advertised, then you'd probably expect a brief period of highly increased profit margins (by the consumers of AI) followed by rapid _deflation_ as the value of everyone's dollar increases exponentially. Of course, neither of those things is going to happen, because the AI sales pitch is actually a pyramid scheme, so you get the people at the top raking in cash, while everyone else tries to sucker the next tier of buyers so that they can make their buck.

    • nfw2
      I think the problem is moreso that making useful things for enterprise with AI right now is actually pretty hard because context and attention management is hard, the token cost for complex tasks scales fast, and model's lack of intuition for fuzzy decision-making.

      There are hordes of grifters promising things they can't deliver and reaping in millions in capital from investors who are equally confused about the challenges of designing useful AI.

      That said, AI can do useful things when properly designed. The market finding the people who can make this happen won't happen as fast as people expect.

  • gmerc
    Yea no. Corporate America needs to go to school to learn that their monopoly supplier will dis-intermediate and squeeze them, which Chinese companies will be able to access abundant extremely cheap AI at marginal cost

    • saithound
      Well, I don't think we disagree. It might turn into a Bertrand market instead of a Cournot one in China. That just means the end consumers capture the benefits, though.
• genldd
  My biggest doubt isn't whether AI will find applications for speeding up people outside of tech, but that it will atrophy learning and cognitive development to the extent that in 20 years human ability without AI will be on average much lower than it is today. Overall with AI augmentation we may be more effective, but strip away that tool and the human left behind will be less

  • EPWN3D
    Literally the argument math teachers make about calculators.

    • science4sail
      That doesn't mean that they're wrong. You can take a look at early 20th century literature to see the sorts of mental math humans (especially humans employed as "computers") were capable of.

      Even further back, you can take a look at how good human memory was in oral-tradition, preliterate cultures. All of those extremely long poems had to be memorized by bards, skalds, griots, etc.

    • bigstrat2003
      And math teachers have been correct. So, if anything, that suggests that the parent post is also correct.

      • t0mpr1c3
        Are you asserting that children's math abilities have fallen? I don't think we are far enough past COVID to know the current trend, but math scores were not in general decline prior to 2020.

        In my view, modern mathematics curricula are an improvement over rote-learning Euclid, and calculators are a useful tool.

        • watwut
          Kids are allowed calculators only in quite limited amounts and special situations. At least where I see in real life.
        • BarkenBark
          I haven't been to elementary school recently, but I'm pretty sure kids are still taught to perform arithmetic in their head / manually before they're taught how to use calculators.

          • nitroedge
            You should see what passes for what knowledge and skills a kid needs to graduate these days. It's sad.
    • lioeters
      Notice how even with such advanced cognitive atrophy, the patient is still able to repeat that worn-out comparison.
  • nitroedge
    Brainrot and cell phones have entered the chat...
• simonbarker87
  I have a suspicion that, outside of tech, AI WILL speed up the mundane aspects of people’s jobs, that part which they spend 80% of their time getting through, so they can then do the 20% where they actually add value.

  BUT the new time they unlock will be spent doing more of the mundane work that previously just didn’t get done because it was overtaken by events or it got done to the absolute barest minimum level.

  As a result the 20% where they add value never really grows or changes and in fact might be less valuable because of all the extra noise created by doing more tasks in the 80%.

  This is working theory and likely full of holes.

  • gamblor956
    The mundane tasks are only about 20% of the work for white collar works. AI just eliminates the low-value mundane tasks.

    Unless AI companies are willing to do the impossible and accept liability for incorrect responses/outcomes, they're never going to be trusted with any task that could incur liability (law, accounting, medicine, architecture, engineering).

    • wswx
      Correct.

      Could humans review AI output? Sure. You still need humans. Funnily enough wages won't decline in the long-run - they'll rise as firms compete for those who remained employed in said roles as others fell out of favour and have gaps in work experience.

      Many, many variables at play. I never take anyone seriously who never considers this (many people on here).

      • cwillu
        Wages only rise if you don't include the displaced in your average, which feels a bit dodgy in this context, even if it is technically the accepted practice.

        • [deleted]
          Comment removed.

          • cwillu
            Not interested in conversing with a person who can't even keep their previous comment in their context window.

            Good day, sir.

      • nitroedge
        You mean "work experience" and "doing it the old non-AI way" will have significant value to the employer and anyone aged 40 and older will be in incredible demand and offered high wages?
      • danaris
        Wages will only rise if labor power rises relative to corporate power.

        If that doesn't happen, then companies will just continue to make excuses for why they need to lay off 20,000 workers after having their best quarter ever.

  • MiroslavPokorny
    How will AI do mundane work like:

    - Cleaning - Picking up rubbish - Stocking shelves - Healthcare - Fruit picking

    Thats only the start, while a lot of people do work on a computer, far more dont.

    • red369
      To act as the Devil's Advocate here, I suppose the very high valuations for the AI companies are because some people think AI will solve those through allowing robots to do that work. Although, Healthcare is a lot broader, and seems to me to be much more complicated than the others. Surely less solvable than the others in your list - if any are in the near future.

      Healthcare is probably the one that we need some sort of help with the most! I think the need for people (fine - or robots) working in Healthcare will grow faster compared to the others in the future because of population aging.

      Edit: Clarified my meaning by adding "some people think" to the sentence "...because some people think AI will solve..."

      • bradknowles
        The Japanese are already well along the path here. They have an aging population and the younger people aren’t having babies fast enough.

        So, eldercare is becoming a really serious problem. And they are already well down the road towards solving that problem.

        As always, the future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed.

        • red369
          Even countries which aren't as far along must be nervous when doing forecasting. Working with a team planning around forecast public healthcare requirements was anxiety inducing.

          There were all sorts of plans to reduce the future requirement by addressing issues earlier, and preventing patients ending up in hospital, but it seemed to me that reduced quality of care in the future is inevitable.

      • lithos
        Imagine the lawyer like profit that will occur after hospital AIs argue with Insurance AIs.
    • 2III7
      In 5-10 years those tasks may be done by humanoid robots. Replacing cleaners with robots is already here. In many supermarkets and warehouses robots wet and dry clean the floors. A task that would take humans hours to do.

      • MiroslavPokorny
        We have heard about humanoid robots for nearly 20 years from people like Boston Dynamics, and they still cant do the most basic tasks and cost millions.

        The only robots available today can barely bring a glass of water and they cost crazy amounts of thousands of dollars.

        > Replacing cleaners with robots is already here. In many supermarkets and warehouses robots wet and dry clean the floors.

        What do you think would happen to a hospital that only cleaned the floors ?

        There are far more important places that need cleaning besides floors.

        • 2III7
          The shift to robotic cleaning is only accelerating and eventually all general cleaning personnel will be replaced by robots.

          Hospitals need thorough cleaning yes and currently the quality varies greatly depending on who does the cleaning. If the cleaners have low morale and lack of motivation for whatever personal reason they do a crappy job. A robot doesn't have personal issues. The level of dexterity is not there yet but eventually cleaning will be done only by robots.

          Take the 1x neo humanoid. It's lacking in autonomy only because the VLA model is still quite primitive. Now imagine what similar robots could do in 10 years if the AI side is fully developed.

          Also the pricing is a non issue. A $50000 robot that can work for 5 years is a much better investment than paying a human.

          • MiroslavPokorny
            > The shift to robotic cleaning is only accelerating and

            Very easy to accelerate when you start with a small number.

            > eventually all general cleaning personnel will be replaced by robots.

            NO it wont.

            Nobody will be able to afford robots because they will not be a replacement.

            > Hospitals need thorough cleaning yes and currently the quality varies greatly depending on who does the cleaning. If the cleaners have low morale and lack of motivation for whatever personal reason they do a crappy job. A robot doesn't have personal issues. The level of dexterity is not there yet but eventually cleaning will be done only by robots.

            A robot has FAR bigger problems, namely they cant actually do the job because of mechanical limitations and they cost too much.

            > The level of dexterity is not there yet but eventually cleaning will be done only by robots.

            Thats right stop bullshitting.

            It doesnt count until a working example is shown and available. Robots can barely walk up stairs and you want to pretend they can do everything.

            Its fine to criticize humans and point out their mistakes and weaknesses, but its not honest to downplay robotic cleaner negatives so they are effecitely nothing.

            > Also the pricing is a non issue. A $50000 robot that can work for 5 years is a much better investment than paying a human.

            A $50K robot can barely carry a glass of water.

            Stop pretending robots are comparable to humans. Boston Dynamics mule type robots can barely run and cost millions EACH.

      • ljf
        True - but it doesn't need to be a humanoid robot - there was a great video of a person that built a 'picker' - essentially a crane in their bedroom that could tidy for them. Why make it look like a human, when better and cheaper to focus on solving the problem?

        https://hackaday.com/2026/06/15/building-a-ceiling-based-cra...

        • MiroslavPokorny
          I never introduced the requirement that the cleaning robot needed to be human like, the parent post mentioned that. Just shows how little thought had gone into robot side that they introduced unnecessary handicaps that only increase cost and engineering challenges.

          Your idea of a ceiling is broken because most buildings are not ready for that. This idea only adds cost.

          How many hospitals would actually be ready to be modified to support a track system, because from what ive seen most rooms are not design for such a clearance and open system. What happens if a room has a mess somewhere but the tracks to access the place are closed because doctors are busy underneath ?

          Maybe its me, but i dont want a robot that may or may not leak mess over other sick patients. Seems like an unnecessary contamination with serious consequences, because today cleaners dont transport toilet mess over the beds of many patients as they travel from toilet duty to another place.

          Your solution isnt saving money its simply requires a expensive investment in both new unproven machines, requiring a new skill of expensive installers along with serious building modifications.

          To save a few dollars are you requiring hospitals to spend tens of millions with a payback of hundreds if not longer years.

    • bradknowles
      You’ve already got robots that do most of these things. And have done so, for years.

      Can you try picking some jobs that aren’t already heavily automated in many places?

  • asadotzler
    If AI helps with the mundane side of real work, great, but outside of mundane-only work, there generally isn't a conveyor belt of random mundane work backfilling the real work's now-fixed-by-AI mundane bits. Any mundane work that's gone unaddressed for long is unaddressed because management doesn't think it'll benefit the business, and if it didn't benefit the business yesterday, clearing out some unrelated mundane work doesn't automatically increase the priority of that unhelpful-to-the-business backlog of mundane work.
  • jshier
    Once the OS and app hooks are in place, I think its biggest win is going to be plain language automation. Even if we don't have it write all of our emails and report, simply being able to say "show me the emails Bob sent about the project" or "did Bob ever say he was going to call Phil?" and get an accurate answer will be huge. We're approaching that in programming, when I can use general terms to automate operations within a codebase. The dream of "programming" with plain language may finally be realized.
  • justinfarmer_nc
    Completely agree with your assessment. New mundane things will always come up as you unlock more time. I see it everyday with my clients.
  • wswx
    Its not even a theory tbh. Its just a statement - utterance.
  • globular-toast
    > that part which they spend 80% of their time getting through, so they can then do the 20% where they actually add value.

    Are we still telling ourselves this lie? Nobody appreciates anyone else's job, not until it's too late. There must be a name for this phenomenon, where everyone thinks that everyone else's job is 80% pointless.

  • Leonard_of_Q
    > BUT the new time they unlock will be spent doing more of the mundane work

    ...which will also quickly be done by "AI", uncovering more such tasks until most of the "mundane work" is done by "AI" leaving humans free to do "non-mundane work". Of course those less mundane tasks require more insight, intelligence, knowledge and initiative from those humans which means some people will just not be able to keep up with their competitors, the humans who can do the less mundane tasks and the "AI" which can do the mundane stuff faster, more reliably and cheaper.

    The big question is what those humans will do once such a scenario becomes true.

  • florkbork
    It's not a terrible take.

    What do you call an expert knowledge worker system with access to vast troves of knowledge, a sophisticated text to speech loop and empathy, that empowers others? That could reshape your knowledge infrastructure to a usable system?

    A librarian.

    If there were a huge number of jobs that were able to be automated/these skills solved them, why hasn't society paid librarians LOTS and hired one at every company?

    The answers are probably it costs too much, the work is too niche

• dstroot
  The cost of training/developing a frontier model will continue to rise. The cost of inference will continue to fall. Companies don't buy models as such, they buy inference. As inference becomes a larger and larger business expense companies will optimize that spending, routing work to the "capable enough" least cost tokens.

  There is a lot of human work that can be offset with tokens. On the other hand, the amount of work for the highest intelligence models will remain limited - corporate strategy, major decisions, etc. are just not as frequent.

  • snowe2010
    The highest “intelligence” models can’t even handle basic tasks right now. Saying that only “corporate strategy” and “major decisions” will need those models is laughable.
• gruez
  Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50224463

  609 points by the-mitr 1 day ago | hide | past | favorite | 645 comments

• danpalmer
  The economy has many different resources with different supplies available. Making the supply of one resource infinite may sound like a huge win, but nothing is dependent on a single resource, everything requires a combination – just like in board game economies, you can't win by only producing wood.

  AI represents some weird intelligence-like resource. It clearly does something of value, but that must be combined with other resources. In tech there's a lot of that, so making it (roughly) infinitely accessible has had a nice impact and we've run into our next limiting factor: human time. Companies that aren't "pure tech" though will run into much earlier limiting factors – hardware, compliance, regulation, artistic value, human time, and so on.

• elmer2
  It's because other industries are buying expensive tokens, and there's no real ROI yet.

  • levzettelin
    I thought tokens were already sold below what they cost the AI companies, no?
• vrighter
  It has delivered negative financial payoff here. Everyone is using it, nobody knows how anything works anymore, and I am a caveman for refusing to NOT understand the code I write. And they still have to pay the developers. And they still have to pay for the AI. They pay more for an inferior result. And then of course microsoft changed the billing contract on them... :D

  • eurotraveler
    I have the same experience, it is like a shame to try to understand shit. We have to trust the new god AI.
• latentsea
  When software engineers get put out of work, they'll move to other industries. They'll take their engineering mentality/skills and their affinity for Claude and they'll look at their menial, boring work they're handed and they'll say... I know... I can automate that!

  • stvltvs
    What other industries have enough vacancies to be filled by refugee software engineers without significant retraining or cuts in pay?

    • latentsea
      Cuts in pay it is.
• MiroslavPokorny
  AI is the anti midas golden finger. Everyone who touches it is down, and those at the center are down hundreds of billions.

  • xeonmc
    AI is the mierdas touch
• justinfarmer_nc
  I think it all depends what someone considers 'financial payoff'. Does AI cost money? Yes. Does it save someone time? Yes. If I get back 1 hour of my time by using AI in my work then that could be considered financial payoff.
• ChrisArchitect
  [dupe] Discussion on source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50224463
• spolitry
  How does this compare to financial payoff from Bitcoin and NFT adoption?
• spolitry
  I suspect AI has delivered financial value but AI psychosis has cancelled it out.

  It's also possible that AI has created value for consumers, but the profits flowed to the AI producers (due to scarcity) not the middle layer of the value chain, due to completion.