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V_Shtrum t1_j3v3eam wrote

Reply to comment by TheSecretAgenda in Escape Velocity from Bullshit Jobs by maxtility

Agree that it's impossible to define precisely what makes a job bullshit, but disagree that all jobs - even in a "well run" private business - increase profit or are necessary.

I think this is because, ultimately, all businesses are just a collection of people who may be somewhat rational collectively, but irrational at an individual level - there will always be managers in a good business who create superfluous jobs and want to expand their team, I've never met one who's said "my team should shrink, my budget is too high" - the talk is always of expansion.

I know that in theory 'the market' should penalise companies that hire too many superfluous employees, but this would presuppose that markets are truly competitive, which many aren't for many reasons.

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IluvBsissa t1_j3vn3mv wrote

Except for Graeber's, Have you seen any books, articles explaining Bullshit Jobs phenomena a bit more seriously/scientifically ?

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V_Shtrum t1_j3vytka wrote

Yes I read and enjoyed it, I found it equally insightful and hilarious

The only thing I'd say is that, in relation to this discussion, he has a very loose definition of what makes a job bullshit. Am I right in saying he considers a job bullshit when (and only when) the employee considers it bullshit? It just seems too broad and leads to contradictions.

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IluvBsissa t1_j3w1bi1 wrote

Yes, that's his definition.

I would maybe add : if a machine can do your job better than you, and at a lower cost, you have a Bullshit Job. Eg : Pharmacists, data entry mf, tellers...some people love their bs jobs tho, e.g sugar industry Lobbyists who get paid millions each year to veto new national health measure in Congress.

I think a few accademic tried to venture a lil bit in these new waters, but didn't generate any new insights. I think we should ask them on Reddit.

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V_Shtrum t1_j3w5hm7 wrote

>I would maybe add : if a machine can do your job better than you, and at a lower cost, you have a Bullshit

That makes a lot of sense, I don't think Graeber talked a lot about that - if at all.

Speaking of data entry, I (unfortunately) have to do a little bit of this at work: nothing difficult but I take input radiological reports and extract information to put onto excel for data analysis.

By way of background: medical radiology reports are written in free text, they have no structure to them and each radiologist writes in a different format. Extracting data from these reports is very important because let's say you develop a new cancer drug: you would really like to know if it improves outcomes - e.g. slowing the spread of cancer.

I pushed for us to hire an administrator to do the data entry on my behalf. The administrator came, I spent hour after hour, day after day trying to teach them to no avail - they just couldn't wrap their head around how to do it.

Brainwave: I thought maybe I can get ChatGPT to do it. I spent 30 minutes teaching it and voilà - paste in report, churns out exactly what I want in spreadsheet format. I've shown it to some academics at the university and they're just absolutely blown away by it, it'll be a complete game changer.

Anyway, without wanting to be disrespectful to our administrator, ChatGPT just put them to shamez it was massively more intelligent and easier to teach than them. I foresee AIs having the ability to 'pilot' windows UI in the near future with the ability to work cross-software with a digital mouse/keyboard. When that's the case, I really think it will be an existential threat to data entry workers and unskilled administrators.

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