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  • 1.  GenAI advancement, adoption and impact on employment (in the short to mid term) - what to expect

    Posted 30-05-2025 23:00

    Dear community, curious to hear what you think the impact of the implementation of GenAI (particularly of AI agents) will be on work/employment/economic and social wellbeing, and in what time frame. Here is an interesting article with views of Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic: Behind the Curtain: Top AI CEO foresees white-collar bloodbath. What do you think? Please comment. 



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    Ariana Kosyan
    AI, Web3, Tax Technology & Transformation, International Tax / TP
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  • 2.  RE: GenAI advancement, adoption and impact on employment (in the short to mid term) - what to expect

    Posted 31-05-2025 09:10

    Interesting, and I can absolutely see it happening. By the end of the year I'm expecting to be able to automate all the work of the most junior member of my team. He's already starting to move on to higher level work, but why recruit a replacement? However, it won't be as abrupt as the article suggests, for 2 reasons.

    1. Concerns around data security and reliability - whether unjustified from lack of knowledge, or genuine risks that then require time to create appropriate IT and organisational controls. My automations wouldn't be nearly so quick if they involved our client database.
    2. There's only so far efficiency is improved by replacing individuals in current processes. Some of the biggest gains will come from re-engineering processes across businesses to make best use of the combination of AI and humans. But that's not going to happen quickly. How long have companies taken to roll out (non-AI) IT transformations?

    So yes, the effects will start soon, but I reckon it'll be playing out for quite some years to come!

    Nic



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    Nic Pillow
    Senior Ventures Manager
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: GenAI advancement, adoption and impact on employment (in the short to mid term) - what to expect

    Posted 31-05-2025 10:07
    Edited by Kara K.W. Byun 31-05-2025 10:33

    Hi Ariana,

    I am 100% with Amodei on this. Others are with him, too. Google search Tim Ferriss Chris Sacca's Grand Theory of AI, I'm not posting the link here just in case the profanity bot censors my message. And the video that a WSJ reporter put online as a demonstration of capabilities (I know, not finance, but make the point) makes it clear we are living the change now: https://www.wsj.com/video/series/joanna-stern-personal-technology/we-made-this-film-with-ai-its-wild-and-slightly-terrifying/D17B233B-1E06-400D-9095-B5247306DD38?mod=ai_videos_pos2 (Hollywood production crews, formerly a creative media version of white collar workers were getting gutted already; this an accelerant). 

    We don't have solutions for what will be a social crisis, which is a long term economic/finance/macro problem. And the appetite to take action is indeterminate. For example, I took a proposal from a non-profit, The Telescope Foundation (Telescope - Powering a Future That Works for Us), as a thought piece to a senior leader in a large bank this past week to ask, "Should we be doing something? People's jobs are getting eliminated and new graduates don't have opportunities being offered to them, these are our current and future customers." The answer I got back was, "We don't know enough, yet." Which is a truth and also a statement underneath. Our financial organisations are aligned with the technologists, either as participants (we are all seeing colleagues and friends being made redundant, particularly the swath of middle management to non-revenue juniors) or as bankers to technology corporates. So it is totally understandable that any action, even philanthropic, to acknowledge the job destruction may be perceived as contradictory to the messaging that we love technology, and hence unintentional corporate reputation risk. 

    If history is any guide, this is another cycle of creative destruction. Most people getting laid off now are mostly going to have a permanently lost wealth trajectory. It is just a fact of life that a lot of people don't have the capacity to skill up to the level needed to recover their former wealth trajectory. The new knowledge economy countries (aka beneficiaries of job offshoring) need to think hard about what they are going to do about AI (India, watch out). The current political climate, depending on where you are, is retractionary with regards to social welfare because of accumulated inability to balance budgets; social wealth transfer is contentious, some countries leaning in and others putting up a fight. And in the environment of don't take social action, of course the wealthy will get wealthier.

    But as financial professionals, looking objectively at the state of the world and where it is going, there are massive opportunities to trade/invest the market. Short term: so much vol; follow price action of asset classses that are libertarian in nature, obvious ones are gold and mainstream crypto. Long term: don't be reliant on central bank puts but keep an eye out for when they will be forced to take action; country specific, mind the hidden wealth transfers from savers to spenders; watch out for real assets, like commercial and residential properties, that are naturally levered, hostage to employment trends, sitting ducks to get taxed; infrastructure and resources to support energy consumption won't go out of style for while, just don't overpay; probably weaker USD and repatriation of investment capital to respective foreign countries, or redployment to Europe and Japan as the next big liquid areas of investment. All common sense. And as our community has already shown us, we have the tools and smarts to finesse the trading and investing.  



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    Kara K.W. Byun
    Head of Fintech
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: GenAI advancement, adoption and impact on employment (in the short to mid term) - what to expect

    Posted 21-06-2025 16:08
    Edited by Todor Kostov 21-06-2025 16:10

    Adding some relevant recent news on the topic, as well.

    Below link to Andy Jassy's, CEO of Amazon $AMZN, message to employees earlier this week.

    Some thoughts on Generative AI

    Quick summary: 

    • GenAI is considered a "once-in-a-lifetime" technology by him, profoundly changing customer and business possibilities. Amazon is investing "quite expansively" in GenAI, anticipating the reinvention of every customer experience and the creation of entirely new ones.

    • GenAI is actively used across Amazon's operations, including:

    • Alexa+: A smarter, more capable personal assistant that can take significant actions for customers.
    •   Shopping: An AI shopping assistant used by tens of millions globally, with features like "Lens," "Buy for Me," and "Recommended Size".
    •      Sellers & Advertisers: Nearly half a million selling partners use GenAI for product pages, and over 50,000 advertisers used AI tools in Q1 for campaign management.
    •      AWS: Offers custom silicon (Trainium2), services for Foundation Models (SageMaker, Bedrock), Amazon's own frontier model (Nova), and developer tools (Q, QCLI).
    •      Internal Operations: AI improves fulfillment (inventory, forecasting, robot efficiency), customer service chatbot, and product detail page creation.

    • Amazon aims to accelerate GenAI adoption due to strong conviction that "AI agents" will transform work and life.

    • Agents are defined as AI software systems performing tasks for users, from research and coding to automation. Billions of these agents are expected across industries and for personal use.

    • Agents will increase the "scope and speed" of innovation, enabling Amazon to focus less on rote work and more on strategic invention.

    • AI is a catalyst for Amazon to operate like a "world's largest start-up" – customer-obsessed, inventive, and fast-moving.

    • Over 1,000 GenAI services and applications are in progress or built, with plans to "lean in further" by simplifying agent creation and developing new agents across all business units.

    • Increased GenAI and agent usage is expected to change work processes, potentially reducing the total corporate workforce in the next few years due to efficiency gains, while requiring more people for other jobs.

    • Employees are encouraged to be curious, educate themselves, attend trainings, experiment with AI, and participate in brainstorms to invent faster. Embracing AI and becoming "conversant in AI" will position employees for high impact and help reinvent the company.

    • Finally, he compares GenAI's transformative potential to the internet, calling it the "most transformative technology since the Internet".

    #ai #innovationcommunity



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    Todor Kostov
    Director
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    Original Message


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