Though my sample size is small, these stories fit my thesis that the real AI jobs crisis is that the drumbeat, marketing, and pop culture of "powerful AI” encourages and permits management to replace or degrade jobs they might not otherwise have. More important than the technological change, perhaps, is the change in a social permission structure.

Agreed. If a company says “we’ve automated this job and it’s now done by AI,” they mean “we’ve decided to take advantage of media trends by dramatically lowering the quality and reliability of our processes, consistent with our policy of doing things as cheaply as our customers will tolerate.”

AI didn't take your job, you priced yourself out of the market.

I've been on the technical side of delivering translation for better than 35 years. In that time I've had to adapt and learn new technologies as fast as they came out. What started as a challenging, if poorly paid, position has morphed into being a TV producer, director, camera operator, audio, lighting and video tech, translation specialist, computer programmer, network admin, and client handler.

In that same 35 years interpreters and translators haven't changed one iota: still handsomely paid, catered to, self-righteous and entitled; still prima donnas who reek of imagined superiority.

Now I read about AI "taking" work from them? Guess what - AI won't fall asleep while on the job. AI won't shut down because it can't see what kind of mic a speaker is using or there's no water in the booth. AI won't whinge and whine because lunch isn't provided. AI won't bitch because their hotel room is too hot/cold/noisy/near the pool/near the elevator/on too high a floor/on too low a floor, or show up to work uselessly hung over.

Suck it up, buttercup, we've all had a tough go since Reagan and Thatcher decided corporations and profit outweighed the needs of people. You've been pampered forever, now, you have to work. Tough it out and learn to deal with it or fuck off.

The AI translations still suck big time. Yes I run whisper on my local stuff, but I shouldn't be able to tell that much from Crunchyroll. Like common at least review the subtitles... What the heck am I even paying for