Azeem Azhar

It was in late August, early September with one of Eric's postdocs.

And they looked at a lot of hiring data over a couple of years, two or three years.

And they found that if you look to AI-exposed occupations...

computer science or programming and customer service, the level of hiring for entry-level jobs was much lower than in occupations that were not exposed.

But in those same occupations, mid and senior level hiring or employment levels

had not declined.

In some cases, it had increased.

And the argument was, and I think you put it earlier in one of your answers, it's challenging to hire somebody young because while they're cheaper, they need training.

They may not have decided that what they want to do is be a COBOL developer or a CSS jockey.

And so they might flake out after six or nine months.

So again, why not just whip the 45-year-old for a few more years?

So that was Eric's argument, and the paper was called The Canaries in the Coal Mine.

It did really well.

Understandably, I thought it was a great piece of work.

The buts, and I think this is why it becomes complex, this discussion about what are we actually seeing.

So the buts from my side were, number one, it felt really early for chat GPT and gen AI, which are not even three years old, to exist.

effect hiring.

I mean, I've worked with big companies.

They do not move with the degree of alacrity that you might expect.

So that was my first challenge to Eric.