Is AI Taking Your Job or Changing It?

Christina Goldschmidt, Dana Lawson, Ryan Leffel at UXDX USA. Video: https://youtu.be/VyFQPKUI04c

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Setting up the debate

[00:00:08] Ryan: All right. Let's bring out our panelists. A warm round of applause for our three panelists, Christina, Ryan and Dana. All right. Great. Another round of applause for them. Come on up.

[00:00:36] Ryan: I had the honor of being the day one host yesterday. For those of you who weren't here or tuned in, my name is Ryan. I am the UXDX brand ambassador here in New York City. One of the themes yesterday that came up a lot is AI moving really fast. It could build, it could code, it could design, do your laundry. It's just a list of things that AI is taking over. Part of the question that we posed at the beginning of the day is, if AI can build a product, what are the humans actually for? Today I think we're going to have a very lively debate about just that.

[00:01:10] Ryan: But before we get into it, who here, just show of hands, and online, maybe throw some emojis out there, but who here believes that AI is going to take jobs? And who here believes that AI is going to change the way we think about our jobs? All right. So we're fairly evenly split. Okay, great.

[00:01:32] Ryan: I am joined today by two absolutely brilliant leaders in the product design and technology space who have a very clear point of view. Christina is going to stand on the side of AI is changing our jobs. Dana feels like it's taking the jobs. So we'll definitely hear about that today. We did a fake coin toss in the back. Christina is going to kick us off. Christina, why don't you give a quick intro about yourself and talk about why you think AI is changing our jobs?

Christina: what the data on industrial revolutions shows

[00:02:02] Christina: Thank you. Christina Goldschmidt, VP of product design at Warner Music Group, and also a professor at NYU Stern School of Business in Management and Innovation. For this first question I'm going to show up as my second persona a little bit, because I have some stats to bring with us.

[00:02:22] Christina: But first, did anybody see that thing on the news this morning or yesterday about the commencement speech at University of Central Florida, where the students booed the speaker when she said that AI is the next industrial revolution? I actually think that they were short-sighted in booing her, because there's something called the Jevons paradox that has proven that whenever you get more resources in an area, it actually leads to more. That's the idea of the industrial revolution.

[00:02:56] Christina: There's this great paper out there from Morgan Stanley. You can Google it, or if you reach out to me I'm happy to send it to you. It talks about the five major industrial revolutions, starting with the first industrial revolution, finishing up with the fifth one, which they claim is the internet going from 1990 to 2022, where in every single instance, yes, it took jobs, but it ultimately led to more jobs and more creation for those people in those sectors. That in itself is a really great topic for us to think about today: that for every single tech innovation and revolution, it actually ultimately changes jobs, but leads to more.

[00:03:38] Christina: Then there are two professors at NYU who are deeply studying this right now. Professor Ghose has worked with over 100 companies, and he sees things like, yes, there are about 18% of jobs that are at risk of being automated, about 48% that will stay the same, but he sees 12% of jobs actually having a lot of growth, and about 24% having a reorganization or a change.

[00:04:06] Christina: And Professor Seamans, also at NYU, actually says, "Hey, all this hype that AI is taking jobs is not correct." Sure, there has been a slowdown in the entry-level jobs that have started to come out, but the real reason why we have a lot of job loss right now is 100% related to over-hiring still from COVID times and higher interest rates. It is not because of AI, because right now AI is only affecting about 30% of companies in a sense positively.

[00:04:38] Christina: The last statistic I'll bring to you is, I looked at April's numbers for jobs. There was a decrease of 5.5% in product design. There was a decrease of 4% in PM jobs. However, there was a 14.4% increase in design engineering jobs, that combination of design and front-end engineering. And also there was a 15.4% increase in UXR jobs. A 15.4% increase in UXR jobs. That actually gives me a lot of hope.

[00:05:11] Christina: As you saw me on stage yesterday, I was talking about how important discovery is right now. I think that a lot of people are figuring out that you have to answer the right questions so that those teams can move faster. And the last one is actually a 10.9% increase in design operations jobs. So people are reinvesting in design ops to help those leaner teams move faster.

Dana: the displacement numbers are real

[00:05:34] Ryan: Thank you, Christina. Dana, hand this one over to you.

[00:05:36] Dana: Okay, first of all, I didn't know I was going up against a professor. So that's not fair. I'm going to call that out first. But you know what? That's all right. I got this, okay? This is not scold at all on this side of this. This is just general observation.

[00:05:55] Dana: Dana Lawson, CTO of Netlify. I've been in tech for 27 years. I know, right? And I've personally had to lay off lots of people, and it really sucks. I'll give you some reality, because those are future stats that a lot of tech billionaires want to blow up your ass and tell you what's happening. But I'm going to tell you. I sit on the cusp of Silicon Valley, and they're lying to you, okay?

[00:06:23] Dana: In 2025, 154,000 jobs were displaced for AI. In the first five months of this year, 96,000 jobs have been displaced because of AI. The first five months. We are going to triple that number before the end of the year. Now, how many jobs have been augmented? 9,000. Okay, let's do some hard math here. 96,000 people have been laid off, but we've augmented 8,000. I'm going to tell you right now, if you're not advancing, being curious and wearing more hats, you will lose your job.

[00:06:54] Dana: You are a number. When executives go through and do fiscal planning, they look at two things: CAPEX, how much money am I making, and OPEX, how much money am I spending? It is a proven fact right now that credits and token spend is outpacing infrastructure, and when humans are billed as operational expense, they will choose you before they choose the systems.

[00:07:16] Dana: And that sucks, but it's true, and the reality's there. So I implore you to protect yourself, to advance yourself, to upskill yourself, to look beyond the remits of your role, because it is taking your jobs. You can read all the hyperbole that it's coming and creating. Have you seen jobs be created? Have any of you?

[00:07:38] Dana: I can tell you, I just gave you stats. I'm going to tell you, every day I have hundreds, hundreds, probably thousands I'd say, when I open a job posting, of people applying. These are people that have long-lived history and experience in this field, and they are not getting picked. They're going to go with the cheaper ones. So when we say it's taking your jobs, it's taking your jobs. Yes, it may create it for low level, but white-collared information workers are being replaced.

[00:08:06] Dana: And you know that it's going to get worse when the tech billionaires are saying let's have universal basic income. When you have rich people telling you that we should just give money to people, that means they're worried that they're not going to have jobs created. As soon as I hear Elon or Zuck start whispering that, I'm like, uh-oh. That's not good when they're just wanting to give out money and not give out jobs. That's the reality we're facing.

Rebuttals: fear versus contraction

[00:08:29] Ryan: I want to give each of you a chance here for a rebuttal. All right, Christina, on to you.

[00:08:33] Christina: Yeah, there's a real fear here. That's a lot of fear. Again, I just said that a lot of people are citing that it's AI that is taking those jobs, but that is not the real economic reason why those are leaving. Reuters reported back in August that 71% of employees across the board thought that there is this real fear of losing their jobs. So that's fear. If you want to buy into that fear, that's up to you, and sure, you're not alone in that, but that's not the reality of it.

[00:09:05] Christina: Yes, I agree, wear different hats, work to change, and really this is a great time to do that. But there are going to be a whole bunch of different jobs. The jobs that will exist in the future are those that help work with the AI. One of the things that I talked about for Morgan Stanley was that they said that the internet revolution stopped in 2020.

[00:09:32] Christina: I don't know about you all, but I've been working with machine learning for a really long ass time, and that's AI. Sure, AI is for the first time available to the public, but AI didn't show up on the scene last year, two years ago. It's just much more accessible to the daily person. We have been using AI in our jobs. It's continuing to evolve.

[00:09:56] Christina: We're still in this new information age, and I think that we're still on this last fifth tech innovation approach. I think that there's probably still another one coming after this, that AI isn't its only thing. It is part of this larger thing that we've been experiencing and the change that's been happening that we've been a part of. I'm also in tech for 25 years, or 27 years too. I'm in the '90s. And I've been through the dot-com bust, the downturn of '08, the tech layoffs of 2022, 2023. We're all still here. It's going to keep going.

[00:10:33] Ryan: Dana, would you like to rebut?

[00:10:35] Dana: That's a common thing that everybody believes, that there's going to be a mad rush of brand new job creation, but I simply am not seeing it. How many people here have known or have been affected by reductions in force? All right. There's quite a few. Now, if there's that many in this small little conference, statistically you probably know five to ten more people that have been affected by job reductions, or they're getting really worried that the teams are not growing.

[00:11:05] Dana: So when we say that jobs are being replaced, new jobs aren't being created. In fact, right now we're seeing a contraction. You're seeing that more companies are choosing to have smaller, nimble teams without middle management, deep technical learning, and then very early entry. There's a lot of missing people in the middle that haven't gotten that opportunity to do broader and bigger things so that they can continue to have their role.

[00:11:26] Dana: There's a struggle right now across the industry of looking at career advancement, looking at ways that people can continue to participate, and their ceilings being built that they can't break out of. Again, we can talk about the future of, yeah, they're going to be creating a whole bunch of jobs, but people need them right now. They don't need them in six months.

[00:11:48] Dana: As you wake up, I'm for you. Yesterday, GitLab just put out a huge announcement of, like, they're replacing half of their team with AI. We've already seen this at Microsoft, going and saying, "Hey, voluntarily retire." Every company is pulling these little things saying it's not AI, we're just correcting from over-hiring during COVID. Well, you know what? COVID ended a few years ago, and I think that is just a talk piece to justify how they're going to make their operational spend meet where they need to be to be profitable, because at the end of the day this is just capitalism and economics.

[00:12:21] Dana: I do believe, as a technology worker, there's a lot of fear. Honestly, I'm not scared. I sound real passionate. I'm just passionate in life. It's how I always show up. If you ever hang out with me, you probably need a break after a few minutes.

[00:12:41] Dana: I just think this is reality. The hard, cold facts are that these jobs are being taken, people are losing them, people do not have a sense of their own value anymore. I'm very hopeful that I am losing this debate, because I do believe that people are needed. I think that people should be in the loop, and I hope that we're wrong, and I hope that all these companies come back and come to their senses and see the value in humanity.

[00:13:07] Dana: But the reality is black and white now. The job placement need for tech has never been higher. Through the dot-com bust, through the 2009 housing bust, there were jobs being created. Right now, there are not new tech jobs being created.

[00:13:25] Ryan: Okay, so we're going to change it up, but first, can we do a check-in after the first question? Everyone get your phones out. Who is winning the debate?

[00:13:38] Ryan: Uh-oh. Let's swing back. No way. We're not done yet, though.

[00:13:48] Dana: Oh, look at that. I'm freaking everybody out. That's right. You should be scared.

The collapse of roles

[00:13:56] Ryan: All right, I think we have a general sense. Definitely flip-flopping back and forth a little bit. Okay, Dana, I'm going to throw this one back over to you. Could you talk a little bit about the direct impact that you're seeing today on technology, design, research?

[00:14:11] Dana: I'm seeing people in the development life cycle that don't have the particular roles that they're being asked to fill. You're seeing engineers act as product managers, which is not great, trust me. You're seeing product managers act as designers, which also isn't awesome. There's a reason that people study these crafts.

[00:14:35] Dana: But the reality is, we're all being told you need to go from idea to production and prototype as quickly as possible. You need to just get AI to pull in all your components and you're fine. It's good enough. These experiences are ephemeral. Don't overthink it. I think there's this mad push for maximum velocity, and so you see this collapse of roles. When there's a collapse, that means there's less people that have distinct, nascent roles.

[00:15:00] Dana: Now, personally, I'm going to throw it out there, I don't think it's right. I'm just trying to spit some reality at y'all. I totally hate this. I'm fighting the good fight, people, trust me. But I'm not going to just come and blow some smoke up y'all's asses. I'm in it. I'm in it. I'm hearing it. They're lying to us. They are lying to us because they can.

[00:15:18] Dana: Because they control how many people are hired or not, and it all depends on the GDP, and that is how much the American and the world monetary system is making money. As soon as that gets shaky, then businesses around the world say, "Oh, let's just pause on that," and they re-evaluate where they want to put their spending. If they have proven that they can make more with less people, that is what people will do. Because when you work for a business, guess what your job is.

[00:15:45] Dana: I know, I live in Portland, I hate it too. It's to make money. It is to make money, because that's how society works right now.

[00:15:51] Dana: So I see a huge collapse of these roles. I don't think it's right, but I'm seeing it every day. People are augmenting their titles. Before it was staff UX designer. Now it's member of technical staff. How many companies are going through that now, where you're just a member of technical staff? Well, if you haven't yet, you will. Trust me on this one.

[00:16:15] Ryan: Christina?

[00:16:16] Christina: Yes, roles are converging. I remember back in the '90s that that's how we all started, and it was a lot of fun. It was not that you were a sole practitioner doing everything, but that people could build off of each other and share certain skills, and then also have this major-minor approach to how they were doing work, in order to produce the best possible outcome and product.

[00:16:46] Christina: Right now, the way that we work is actually an industrialized factory version of product development. It's not there to drive as much innovation and as much autonomy and creativity. With this conversion and allowing of the shifting and blurring of lines of roles, it's actually there to increase the ideas that come about.

[00:17:13] Christina: On my team, I have designers who are designing prototypes in Cursor and are actually doing the height of their craft more than we have for 15 years. That means that we are able to actually show what we want the experience to look like, better than kludging together a lot of animation, a Figma prototype, our design system, some random video animation. We can actually show everyone what we would like it to be like, then test it with users in rapid iteration cycles, co-create with them. That holy grail of making sure that we're finding the perfect product-market fit, solving the right questions, getting to the right answers, and putting the right thing out into market.

[00:17:57] Christina: So we're doing those steps faster and better than we ever have, because the technology is allowing us to do that. We do it alongside product managers and engineers, but sometimes we don't always have all three of those people on a product team, and we can distribute our resources and do more. Things that were on our road map three years ago, we can do more now. I can provide much more value to the artists and songwriters that we work with because we're able to do this, and it's much more exciting that we can drive transformation this way.

Early, mid and late career

[00:18:30] Ryan: Christina, in 90 seconds or less: there's a lot of talk about what is happening to early career individuals, later stage folks are falling behind, then you're kind of stuck in the middle. What are your thoughts?

[00:18:46] Christina: For early stage, though there's been a slowdown in hiring, it's because people are figuring out what AI means to them. But if you're early in your career, now is your time, because you can do more and you can learn more, and you can do more across the product development life cycle because AI can help you learn and contribute in all kinds of different ways.

[00:19:09] Christina: So capitalize on this time, learn about how the entire process works, and go get a job, because the market's changing. A lot of people, and I'm sure all of you are not these people, but I've seen in other organizations where some people are reluctant to work like my team is doing, where they're embracing AI as a daily part of their job. If you're younger, go get that.

[00:19:34] Christina: Same for mid: continue to be at the height of your craft, but automate yourself in the right ways. Do not give up where you have the best ability to think and add judgment and solve user problems that ultimately add value for your company, because yes, we are here to make money, but oftentimes we're making money because it solves a problem for those users.

[00:19:53] Christina: And then finally, if you're late season in your job, your job is now about removing friction. I'm not the only person who's saying this. This is actually from a paper that I read from Thoughtworks, who had a great retreat about what's the future of engineering, and they are saying that you will be removing friction for AI, but also for people, because the ultimate bottleneck is actually decision fatigue, leadership, choosing. It's not about approving work, it's about removing that friction so that great work can find its product-market fit and solve user problems.

Who gets cut first

[00:20:28] Dana: 90 seconds. All right. One more hot take here is, yes, it's true, there will be some job creation. But if you statistically look at some of the demographics of who's primarily being affected by AI job replacement, it's diverse individuals, and it's primarily women and non-binary people that are losing their jobs first.

[00:20:47] Dana: When companies go through a reduction in force, they look at the staff, they look at the people. When you already have half of your team that isn't represented, and you have graduates from MIT, Stanford, and it comes down, yes, y'all are safe. You guys, I'm going to say guys, you are totally safe. If you went to a prestigious school and you have a badass degree and there's ten people on your team, they're going to probably pick you. But the reality of it is the job replacement's coming, and the people that are most greatly affected by it are actually women.

[00:21:19] Dana: Again, you may be okay, most people, but if you are an underrepresented person, especially now, at least in the United States where we can no longer say the three-letter curse word of DEI, and I'm going to say it, you're seeing that companies are not putting their investment back into their people to have well-represented, equal and inclusive teams anymore, because we're now not allowed to talk about it. Now that you have this permission to say, "Well, great, I can reduce this, I can do more with less," you're going to sit there and say, "Well, I don't have all these boundaries."

[00:21:47] Dana: Now, personally, I don't like to work for businesses that don't still have firm beliefs in DEI, and I'm very blessed to be at the top that says, "You know what? Everybody should have a place and space to build technology, because diverse thinking makes it better." I don't want all my AI agents just to be a bunch of Silicon Valley dudes and tech oligarch billionaires. I'm going to be there fighting and representing.

[00:22:12] Dana: But the fact is, because of current legislation globally, that has impacted the rest, that started in the US and is impacting the rest of the world, we're seeing this shift turn back to how it was, which was not great. That's turning the screws on saying corporate finances matter more than you. It sucks, and it's going to take all of us to stand up and fight for what's right so that we can continue to take this technology into the future.

The future of building product

[00:22:36] Ryan: Woo, yeah. All right, good stuff. We have under three minutes. I want to ask one more question. I want to make sure both of you have time. What do you see the future of building product look like?

[00:22:49] Dana: Honestly, I think it's an incredible time. It is absolutely an amazing time to be in technology, to see the world get to participate in creating new ideas that I hope will advance human progress. Because isn't that why we started this? Isn't this why we started building these experiences? Isn't this why we created automation, so that we can move faster, so that humans can do greater things than we ever expected?

[00:23:13] Dana: So I'm hopeful that, yes, this is a bubble, but I think that it's true that a lot of us will be reimagining our purpose, our value and our identity. That's something that we all have to dig into. But it is an incredible time to be a builder. You have to just put your ego down, put your hands off the keyboard, and just have those good ideas, and remember now that you're capable to do them, and don't let any constraints hold you back.

[00:23:44] Christina: In this time, it's important to know that jobs are going to come from everywhere, and this technology is changing the landscape such that our jobs do not have to come from one entire sector, which is the tech sector in Silicon Valley. I work at a legacy company, and we are hiring.

[00:24:06] Christina: There are places where AI is going to change the landscape of what other companies, who previously were not in the game, can do now. I want you to open your eyes to other types of job possibilities, and companies where cultural diversity is the core of their product, because they are a cultural part of our world, and diversity of their product is how they make their money.

[00:24:35] Dana: I want to commend you for what you said, and say right on to that.

[00:24:40] Christina: But the thing is, none of us can see the future. For those of you that know me, I have another persona, which is I believe in actually tapping into your subconscious to try and help you be the best leader you can. Last week I met with a bunch of other executives and we were asking, what is going to happen with AI? And we looked to the tarot.

[00:25:08] Dana: That's right. Get some woo-woo.

[00:25:11] Christina: For those of you that can't see this, this is the four of swords. The four of swords is actually about: you have survived three battles, and now is the time to rest, regroup and do a retrospective. Because if you know what you should start, stop and continue, and you look inward to yourself, you will know how to fight this next battle and how to show up for this change. So I want to leave you with that.

[00:25:50] Ryan: I know we're out of time here. Do you want to go back to the scorecard? Who won the debate?

[00:25:57] Dana: I feel like we both are winners.

[00:25:58] Ryan: I think you're both winners too. Hopefully this...

[00:26:02] Dana: See, though, it takes a while. Here we go. Well, yes. I hope she won. I was like, if I come in and win this, I'm not going home. I already don't want to be on the internet for this.

[00:26:19] Dana: But the reality is that we have to work to change. So arm yourself now.

[00:26:23] Christina: That's right. Yeah.

[00:26:26] Dana: I'm glad y'all voted that we're here to stay. I would have been very worried.

[00:26:31] Ryan: Well, thank you so much. It was really fun.

[00:26:32] Dana: That was so fun.

Q&A

[00:26:35] Ryan: I think we're going to do questions. Oh, we're doing questions. Questions, yeah. All right. If you have the QR code from before, please submit questions. We have no questions yet. Maybe we can throw the QR code up on the side of that, Erin. Oh, there we go.

[00:26:51] Ryan: All right. If half your team's output could be done by AI tomorrow, would you cut head count? This is a good question, because as technology workers we should be really producing five or ten times the value of our salary. We are multiplicative in what we do. When I see companies cutting when they could just use that talent to expand, where do you come on that, expand versus cutting?

[00:27:12] Christina: I've actually been through layoffs myself, and like I said, we're now actually hiring. A lot of it is, can we move our road map faster at this point? So do you have the right people who are actually standing up for this change, who can work in the new ways, and who are going to work at that multiplier? And then, are we going to achieve our goals faster?

[00:27:38] Christina: This question is not going into all of the different things that you would have to consider to answer it perfectly, but if you can move things faster and your economics are right, then you don't have to. If you're actually falling behind and you can't redeploy them to keep doing more that drives revenue, then you would probably have to. That definitely would be the CEO reality.

[00:28:06] Ryan: So, Dana, the CEO comes to you. You've talked about this efficiency you're getting with all your agents, but you want your team members to do more. What do you tell that person?

[00:28:15] Dana: Well, y'all better do more or I'm going to have to cut your jobs. No, no, no.

[00:28:20] Ryan: This is about the CEO. I can tell you your management style already.

[00:28:25] Dana: I'm like, CEO, I'm going to cut your job. My CEO is just an engineer. No, he's a brilliant engineer. If they come, I really think you've got to be conservative. You can't, just because you can do more doesn't mean you should, and I think that because of the ability of AI to make you move so rapidly, a lot of it's a bunch of crap. I mean, it's great crap. And then you worry about, now are people paranoid, gaming the system and just producing a lot of stuff because they're like, "Somebody's going to go see who's using the most tokens. Better be me."

[00:28:57] Dana: I think it comes down to that user experience and what you're actually outputting. I believe in the foundation of slow productivity, which is an anti-pattern to AI, but it's the right pattern. If y'all haven't looked into Cal Newport, some of the writings behind this, it really I think needs a refresh for how we're living right now.

[00:29:14] Dana: If they come and they say, "Wow, you're really increasing your velocity," it's like, "Great. Are we in a position where we want to accelerate the road map? If so, do we feel we can do that without burning out our humans, doing it with quality, and not creating a bunch of slop and throwaway code?" I think it's doing the same practices we always have, which is being ruthless about that experience, ensuring that we keep the experience meaningful and sacred and wonderful, and not just throwing out every idea and every experiment because an agent told you you could.

[00:29:45] Dana: For me personally, I push back on that. I'm like, "Well, what's really going to matter?" I can build anything now, but if it doesn't matter, should I build it? No. So I just push back and say, "No, that's a terrible feature. We're not doing that."

[00:30:00] Dana: But on the other hand, everybody gets these Dora metrics of, "Look how many deploys, and look how many pull requests." It's numbers, numbers, numbers. And I'm like, "Yeah, but is anybody using it?" Because the only metrics that really matter now are, are people using it, and are you making money? Everything else really doesn't. Speed of delivery with AI: I think that whole system of productivity needs to be reimagined for developers now, when you have machine speed, because just because you can do it, again, doesn't mean you should.

[00:30:32] Ryan: All right. And with that, let's give it a round of applause for our panelists. Thank you. Good job.