Barclays cutting 5,000 jobs as it increases reliance on AI

[Yasser76]

I have a tough Audit Job in a big MNC Bank . Working across teams and regions, deadlines , everyday new stuff to learn....and when I look at Cab drivers ( I am based in Dublin), I wonder , what a lovely job they have...tax free income...you are your own boss...but I am on the verge of hanging up...hoping to last 2 more years of this grind...and than Peace. And yes, AI adoption in my role is not a choice...one of the biggest investors in AI is my organization....

Yeah, another 5 years and retirement for me, glad I am a senior manager, really feel for the juniors coming in, my org cut a lot of junior roles as AI can do those jobs, now we seem to only need either relationship builders at senior level and tech people overseeing more and more AI. Legal time is 75% smaller then it was 2 years ago and more efficient now. Whole new world.....

 

[roger]

Yeah, another 5 years and retirement for me, glad I am a senior manager, really feel for the juniors coming in, my org cut a lot of junior roles as AI can do those jobs, now we seem to only need either relationship builders at senior level and tech people overseeing more and more AI. Legal time is 75% smaller then it was 2 years ago and more efficient now. Whole new world.....

I still have 15 more years of work life left ( turning 50 soon) and here retirement age is 65. But I am exhausted and have not much aspirations for self. My son is 19 and special child and I lost my wife 17 years back. I want to go back to my village. I came here 4 years back for better life for my son but medical support here is fucked up. Private does not exist ( non existent literally ) and social is 6 to 8 months waiting list. And true, I feel for new generation. What a world we are going to enter. I think one needs to have land / actual agricultural land ( today they have invented how to make gold in lab and so buying gold is risky as well).. today's issues / wars/ fights are nothing ...in terms of what lies ahead. Not scaring anyone and I really hope i am proven wrong . But with Trump kind of leaders , what hope we have.

 

[Yasser76]

I still have 15 more years of work life left ( turning 50 soon) and here retirement age is 65. But I am exhausted and have not much aspirations for self. My son is 19 and special child and I lost my wife 17 years back. I want to go back to my village. I came here 4 years back for better life for my son but medical support here is fucked up. Private does not exist ( non existent literally ) and social is 6 to 8 months waiting list. And true, I feel for new generation. What a world we are going to enter. I think one needs to have land / actual agricultural land ( today they have invented how to make gold in lab and so buying gold is risky as well).. today's issues / wars/ fights are nothing ...in terms of what lies ahead. Not scaring anyone and I really hope i am proven wrong . But with Trump kind of leaders , what hope we have.

Sorry for your loss

 

[Meengla]

Basic jobs to professionals will disappear, maybe not tomorrow but in few years. Give me one example where AI can’t make? There is none. Superintelligent whatever people call it is almost there. New generation of Gpu can make 100 trillion calculations a second.
Just one example developing a new car took years in the past, now just months.

A huge 'positive' with AI is great advancement in detecting and treating grave illnesses like cancer. NY Times recently had an article where AI will be able to detect breast cancer years in advance. I am sure the impact on another diseases will be also huge.
So more people living longer... and more mouths to feed, the more the environmental degradations, the more wars for resources.
Human beings need some kind of 'Charter for Humanity'.

If you have two healthy arms, two legs, eyesight, hearing capability and a working brain .. you should be grateful. As long as humans can grow crops and hunt, we won't starve. Driving luxury cars, riding super bikes and eating trash food in shiny restaurants was anyways artificial and against our nature. Human body is designed for hard work, sitting with your bum on chair for 10 hours a day and staring at a screen was not natural in any case.

Right. Sitting 10 hours a day staring at some screen is bad especially with no 'exercise' routine in life. But maybe even worse is manual labor: Construction work, crawling under a house... They age rapidly and with aches and pains.

 

[pakistanitarzan]

If you have two healthy arms, two legs, eyesight, hearing capability and a working brain .. you should be grateful. As long as humans can grow crops and hunt, we won't starve. Driving luxury cars, riding super bikes and eating trash food in shiny restaurants was anyways artificial and against our nature. Human body is designed for hard work, sitting with your bum on chair for 10 hours a day and staring at a screen was not natural in any case.

AI cannot have the orgasm that we do, so chill. If it is replacing anything, it is replacing the modern day slavery.

Not with sciatica dude

 

[Paitoo]

It’s not all doom, not yet by any stretch but it’s getting to a point where “Super intelligence” as people are calling it these days is the new frontier and corporations don’t really care about human-capital.

I'll go one step ahead and say they dislike human capital. They always have, and that's why industrialization/automation has always increased. The ideal number of people a corporation would want to employ is zero. They don't want to deal with the headache of managing human capital. Presently, many edgelord businessmen are secretly salivating at the prospect of massive reduction in human input. It is a world they have always dreamt of - devoid of the lowly plebs, only filled with highly intelligent people like themselves. Like some science fiction fantasy.
They are also salivating at the prospect of getting more intellectually involved with end-level decision making. For example, programming robotic soldiers / drones on when/how/why to execute a kill. They love all this... this control. With the frontline soldier's judgement gone, they can do as they please. It's just one example. They see it as an opportunity to be at the frontline in all domains. A massive ego trip.

 

[RescueRanger]

I'll go one step ahead and say they dislike human capital. They always have, and that's why industrialization/automation has always increased. The ideal number of people a corporation would want to employ is zero. They don't want to deal with the headache of managing human capital. Presently, many edgelord businessmen are secretly salivating at the prospect of massive reduction in human input. It is a world they have always dreamt of - devoid of the lowly plebs, only filled with highly intelligent people like themselves. Like some science fiction fantasy.
They are also salivating at the prospect of getting more intellectually involved with end-level decision making. For example, programming robotic soldiers / drones on when/how/why to execute a kill. They love all this... this control. With the frontline soldier's judgement gone, they can do as they please. It's just one example. They see it as an opportunity to be at the frontline in all domains. A massive ego trip.

I have to agree with your post wholeheartedly. I remember reading a book once set during the dawn of the Industrial Era and how coal workers and millers were steadily replaced with the passage of time.

The only ones who profited from these advancements were the elites.

 

[I*R*A]

Right. Sitting 10 hours a day staring at some screen is bad especially with no 'exercise' routine in life. But maybe even worse is manual labor: Construction work, crawling under a house... They age rapidly and with aches and pains.

In my opinion, the best professions are where you get to explore the nature, the other life forms, the places, cultures. 6-5 is very monotonous. Even running an automotive garage can be interesting.

 

[I*R*A]

Not with sciatica dude

Writing, music, arts anything?

 

[313Ghazi]

Out in the cold and wet ??? at 50+ doing back breaking work - I don't think so! Grass is not always greener ..

Idk about goray but the apne brickies don't work in the rain. Messes with the mortar. Also they all have like minions giving them bricks and mortar.

You're right though. No time for PDF, Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, Tiktok and whatsapp working as a brickie.

 

[Meengla]

In my opinion, the best professions are where you get to explore the nature, the other life forms, the places, cultures. 6-5 is very monotonous. Even running an automotive garage can be interesting.

Right. Park Rangers, Surveyors... field jobs with mobility but not requiring hard physical work in all kind of weather conditions.
Of the manual labor people talking about here, perhaps only the electricians are less subjected to physical labor stresses. I have employed roofers, plumbers, carpenters, driveway pavers, yard workers... I don't envy them.

 

[Paitoo]

3 of my friends have lost their jobs in the last month or so. They were the ones we least expected to be laid off, coz they were in very niche domains, and no one thought those roles could be taken by AI. Two of them were so niche that they are faced with the prospect of not finding a job at all. On the contrary, most of my other friends who have managerial jobs in finance, banking and tech, and totally replaceable, continue to remain employed, when we thought their jobs will be the first to go. Turns out there is no magic recipe, they are just lucky that the entire chain of command above them are in the same boat, so they are all just surviving by sticking together

 

[Ali_Baba]

There will be a reckoning between the economic model of Ai and the products that these large corporations will provide, with having "no customers" for their products and services because everyone is unemployed with no income.

Maybe time to go and live off the land, like humans have done for millennia ?

There is one thing humans are good at, It is going to be the fight between the one's with pitch fork's and torches vs data centres and if there is one think humans have proven to be good at, it is blowing shit up ..

My advice to everyone is always, stash the cash, because life is full of unfortunate surprises.

( As a side note, the Dune World has a very deep history in the development of humanity and the impact of Ai, and the wars against Ai sentient machines, worth reading the books if you suddenly not have a job and lots of time!).

 

[Meengla]

There will be a reckoning between the economic model of Ai and the products that these large corporations will provide, with having "no customers" for their products and services because everyone is unemployed with no income.

That is a distinct possibility even in short term! And then people like me (who is close to retirement) and @AZ_HighCountry (who is retired) may have to worry about our retirement money's available funds.

 

[KingQamaR]

They blame customers for closing branches not using them , but it's the banks that forced the online banking.