It sounds like these robots can remove tires, swap them and balance wheels. While that is not hard for people, I think in the past that would have been pretty hard for industrial robots. I assume the AI comes in understanding the situation (different cars, etc.), properly aligning different kinds of wheels, etc.
Well, if they can handle uncle Joe’s rusted 60 year old Chevy truck… 
More power to them.
I suspect they will be installing these systems in areas where every other car is a Tesla Y.
I was looking at a platform called lindy.ai that has pivoted to helping one write AI agents to become/replace one’s personal assistant. It actually looks pretty good. That is a pink collar job, many of which have already gone away. I do have an executive assistant and an office/operations manager, both of whose jobs have shrunk (we did have three folks and I trimmed it to two years ago). They probably are really 1.5 FTEs except at peak periods (like end of year accounting and taxes). I asked each of them to think about what training I could give them to ensure they had more to do No answers after a few months. It is possible that I could shrink the job to one and replace the left-over parts with contractors or agents, but they are highly trustworthy and one deals my companies’ money (invoices, payments, short-term investments, taxes) and the other with my personal money (bills, bill payment for my MIL, prep for my taxes, etc.) among many other things. I may need to get someone else to think that through what I could get them to do that would be useful. Who would you hire to do that?
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I had to google that term
Dang, H & I would never have been able to retire if the pink collar job I had was cut. Food for thought …
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I have found the tires on my EV (I have a VW ID.4) last only about 30-35,000 miles. Significantly less than my previous ICE of similar size.
Below is an explanation
Why EVs Burn Through Tires Faster
Extra Weight: EVs can weigh up to 20% more than similar internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, which puts significantly more load and friction on the rubber.
Instant Torque: Unlike gas cars that take time to build RPMs, electric motors deliver maximum torque instantly. Even minor slips during standard acceleration scrub off tread.
Regenerative Braking: While great for preserving brake pads, “regen” shifts braking force (and vehicle weight) to the front tires, creating uneven treadwear.
Soft Compounds: Factory EV tires are often engineered with softer rubber to maintain grip while also utilizing low-rolling-resistance designs to maximize driving range.
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That was the case with all of our Corollas. And these cars couldn’t be driven aggressively even if one wanted to. Quality of tires matters.
Tires commonly have tread wear mileage warranties unless bought with a new car (though the same model tire bought later would have the tread wear warranty).
In both ICEVs and EVs, I have gotten at least the mileage listed for the tire’s tread wear warranty before needing replacement due to <4/32" left going into the rainy season.
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Yep. The warranty is 30k. The ID.4 has the staggered size design so the rear tires are bigger than the front and not rotatable.
But since I don’t pay for gas, rarely use the actual brakes and have not had a single repair bill, I am happy to buy tires more frequently.
Sorry for the tangent, will move to the Hybrid/EV thread hereafter. 
But you did get at least 30k miles from the tires. It is just that the vehicle had a staggered tire size setup (tires typically have half tread wear rating in that case), not because it was an EV.
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The report mentions a 0.2% drop in “artificial intelligence related occupations” over past year when overall employment was up 0.8% in same period. This is quite small and may not reach statistical significance.
I was curious, so I looked up which occupations have had largest decrease over past 4 years since May 2022. Among occupations with over 100k employed, the largest decreases and increases were as follows. AI likely contributes to the decrease in data entry workers and customer service reps, and some others. The employment category with the largest increase was a 64% increase in data scientists, which I also expect involves AI.
Largest Decreases in Employment from May 2022 to May 2026 (overall = up 5%)
- Loan Interviewers – Down 32%
- Bill and Account Collectors – Down 22%
- Credit Counselors and Loan Officers – Down 19%
- Data Entry and Information Processing Workers – Down 19%
- Driver/Sales Workers – Down 16%
- Radio and Telecommunications Equipment Installers and Repairers – Down 16%
- Packers and Packagers, Hand – Down 14%
- Woodworkers – Down 13%
- Computer Network Support Specialists – Down 13%
- Helpers–Production Workers – Down 13%
- Crushing, Grinding, Polishing, Mixing, and Blending Workers – Down 13%
- Postal Service Mail Sorters and Processing Machine Operators – Down 12%
- Cooks, Fast Food – Down 12% (large group, 1 million)
- Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks – Down 11% (large group, 1 million)
- Financial Clerks – Down 11% (large group, 3 million)
- Electrical, Electronic, and Electromechanical Assemblers – Down 10%
- Sewing Machine Operators – Down 10%
- Helpers, Construction Trades – Down 10%
- Receptionists and Information Clerks – Down 10% (large group, 1 million)
- Customer Service Representatives – Down 10% (large group 3 million)
Largest Increases in Employment from May 2022 to May 2026 (overall = up 5%)
- Data Scientists – Up 64%
- Psychiatric Technicians – Up 55%
- Medical Scientists – Up 54%
- Lifeguards, Ski Patrol, and Other Recreational Protective Workers – Up 46%
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Counselors-- Up 43%
- Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants – Up 41% (large group, 1 million)
- Self-Enrichment Teachers – Up 34%
- Special Education Teachers, Elementary School-- Up 34%
- Facilities Managers – Up 33%
- Substitute Teachers – Up 32% (large group, 1 million)
- Parking Attendants – Up 31%
- Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers – Up 30%
- Exercise Trainers and Group Fitness Instructors – Up 29%
- Occupational Health and Safety Specialists and Technicians – Up 29%
- Social and Community Service Managers – Up 28%
- First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers – Up 28%
- Meeting, Convention, and Event Planners – Up 27%
- Project Management Specialists – Up 26% (large group, 1 million)
- Career/Technical Education Teachers, Secondary School – Up 26%
- Logisticians and Project Management Specialists – Up 26% (large group, 1 million)
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You seem to push back a lot on the thought that AI is coming for tech (and other) jobs. I agree that the impact has been negligible so far, but my tech-y friends seem pretty worried about it when they weren’t concerned at all two years ago (one is pretty sure AI is going to take her software development job as she says it’s doing almost everything already - fortunately, she is close to retiring so it isn’t going to be too big of a deal if/when it does).
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My finance friends are already seeing it.
There is almost nothing analytical/number crunching in their world that AI isn’t doing faster. They need someone to validate the conclusion and verify that the data that was inputted is accurate. But a friend told me over the weekend “I had to take a deck (dense numbers, charts, wonky graphs with narrative and footnotes) and turn it into a Powerpoint for a non-financial audience. That would have been a four hour exercise- minimum. AI did it in under a minute. I changed one thing- and the change flowed through the entire presentation”.
So I think the applied disciplines will see the rapid downsizing. The theoretical ones- they still have time!
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I just wrote my first AI agent (very simple) and am now writing my second. Many of the blocks I pull in could have required hundreds of lines of code. As I mentioned in another thread, one of the platforms lindy.ai (not the one I’m working with) seems to have pivoted basically to be a replacement for executive assistants and marketing assistants etc. In my little consulting firm, we had three admin staff and trimmed to two a while ago because of technology. Now the two are probably doing 1.5 FTEs of work as a result of a) technology; and b) an intentional focus on the area of work that is less admin-intensive (and a lot more interesting to me, which is the primary reason). I’m looking to either train the two admins to expand what they do or over time write agents so I only need one FTE. I’d actually love to hire a consultant to figure out how to use two of them better as they are reliable and deeply trustworthy (very important for what I have them do) and I’d like to keep employing both if I can make it make economic sense.
The linked article doesn’t talk much about tech jobs, nor does my reply about the linked article. The list of “artificial intelligence related occupations” in the article instead includes positions like translators, customer service reps, and medical secretaries. The article title is " American Jobs with AI Exposure Really Are Starting to Disappear, Data Show”, yet the text says this job grouping only had a 0.2% drop. This seems like an overly alarmist title to increase clicks/revenue for Gizmodo, as is common for lesser known news sites. The most extreme title gets the clicks, regardless of whether the 0.2% drop even reaches statistical significance.
Getting past the news hype and looking up the actual numbers, the change in totals for the list of "artificial intelligence related occupations” is all over the map for different occupations on this. For example, medical secretaries and administrative assistants is on the list, yet was the job title with the 6th largest increase in my post above. However, customer service reps was also on the list, which was 20th largest decrease on my earlier list in spite of employing a large ~3 million persons.
Tech employment as a whole had an increase during this period. Software developer positions increased by 10%. AI related positions (developing, using, maintaining, …) tended to have larger increases, including the 64% increase for data scientists listed earlier. The broad category of “computer and mathematical occupations” had a 5% increase. One can list anecdotes about people who work in tech who are concerned about their job or lost their job, just as one can list anecdotes about who work in tech who are not concerned or were recently hired. Like your friend, I also work in tech.
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I wonder if some job increases refer to people being hired in a transitional role where they are training AI to do their jobs? I’ve read several articles about that recently.
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I think the 0.2% may be more meaningful in contrast to the 0.8% increase in jobs generally. Net 1% difference. Even this may not be statistically signifcant.
If AI Knows Your Next Trade, What Happens to Money Managers?
Trading strategies of the vast majority of US asset managers are so predictable that artificial intelligence models can easily mimic them, raising questions about how soon they may be replaced by AI.
The article goes on to say that there is still room for human intelligence but focused on areas that AI can’t (yet) mimic, not exactly an earth-shattering deduction.
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I know a number of people my age who are encouraging their younger family members to become financial advisors. In this environment of emerging AI, I am not sure that it’s great advice. While people will still need to be involved, fewer will be required.
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