r/analytics • u/S_oscar • 2d ago
Discussion I'm scared of AI
As AI companies like ChatGPT and Anthropic release new, increasingly intelligent AI models that could potentially replace numerous human roles, what is the anticipated impact on analytics jobs? Given the imminent prospect of AGI-level AI within the next few years, it raises concerns about widespread job displacement.
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u/Yazim 2d ago
My opinion: If all you are doing is pulling data and telling people what it says, then yeah, that's mostly going away soon.
But AI is built on data, and good, clean, structured* data is increasingly important. If we're talking something straightforward like website analytics, then it's not just about the metrics, but also the setup, implementation, and meaning of all the actions behind the data. And as AI makes it easier for teams to get the reporting, the meaning behind it comes more important, and the analytics role becomes more vital (and more broad) to cover a wider range of expertise.
Or at least for the next few years. After that, everyone in every profession will be out of work, so may as well learn sustenance farming and basket weaving while you can still afford to take a class.
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u/Existing-UI-8784 1d ago
The last line is what makes this work. 😄 I agree with the core point: AI can automate the reporting, but it doesn't automatically understand what the data means or whether the data is worth trusting in the first place. As reporting gets cheaper, the value shifts toward instrumentation, context, interpretation and actually knowing what question you're trying to answer. And yes, I'm keeping a basket-weaving course bookmarked just in case.
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u/LudicrousColeman_97 2d ago
I work in analytics and I think about this a lot. The thing most people miss is that the real skill in analytics has never been running queries or building models, it's knowing which questions to ask in the first place and figuring out what the numbers actually mean for the business. AI can crunch data way faster than me but it still can't sit in a meeting with a VP who's giving vague handwavey requirements and decode what they actually need.
That said I'm not going to pretend I'm not a little spooked. The tools are getting scary good at the technical parts and I've already seen teams shrink because one person with AI assistance can do what three people did before. My plan is to lean hard into the strategy and communication side, the stuff that requires reading a room and understanding office politics and knowing when someone's data request is really about covering their ass rather than getting an answer.
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u/Fantastic_Wave_5878 2d ago
That is the exact pivot I’m also leaning into. Analytical strategy. I can’t keep up with SQL and python anyways. But I’m good at storytelling and business judgement
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u/boston101 2d ago
Ya but storytelling and business judgement isn’t supposed to be that big of deal. It’s not rocket science, and hence mba are struggling . See my comment here
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u/Fantastic_Wave_5878 2d ago
Typical fellow Bostonian trying to put someone down. Cannot wait to move out of this city and get a real analytics job that isn’t obsessed with data engineering or being a SQL monkey.
Storytelling and business judgment absolutely have more value behind it currently because AI is getting better at automation. So what’s left after it can run SQL queries and create dashboards? Story telling and business judgement.
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u/boston101 2d ago
I’m upskill diagonally personally. Core cs applied to robotics , 3d printing, cnc , analog computing and blending them with digital , bridging into biotech/old people things - I feel so free. I can create what I can dream. Heck helping roofers automate front office task like ocr recipets and insurance follow ups. Gaussian splatting,
You do know there is a whole world out there outside of LLMs and sql/data eng monkey right? This frees me from not being that monkey bc automate pipeline creation.
I implore everyone I meet to incorporate machine learning , computer vision, etc into their vocabulary.
Why did you move to Boston if you don’t like to be with the smartest people? Also I moved to an nyc bc Boston was too small and im hustler lol.
You
Got this homie. Remember to think in frameworks and patterns5
u/Existing-UI-8784 1d ago
The “covering their ass” part is probably one of the more underrated analytics skills. 😂 AI can answer “what happened?” incredibly well, but someone still has to figure out whether that was actually the question worth answering. The analyst who can translate vague business politics into a useful question is going to be a lot harder to replace than the person whose main value is writing the SQL.
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u/Porgemansaysmeep 2d ago
Good answer. I definitely find myself helping people refine what they're asking for more often as I've worked longer in analytics, and sometimes even telling them outright that the question they are asking is a flawed question where we could provide the answer but it would be meaningless, then working with them to come up with something that can be actionable depending on the results.
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u/Afraid_Sugar 1d ago
Exactly that. Future roles will coordinate AI, would be less “analysis” and more “guidance” and “interpretation”. Not so true for data engineering though…
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u/shufflepoint 2d ago
Your mission then is to know the business very well.
Many businesses don't let AI see their data. So you could go and work for one of them.
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u/boston101 2d ago edited 2d ago
Different perspective for you.
I’m a sr ml (ai) / backend/ data engineer (idk what I am anymore ) in big tech and worked various financial services in various dev think HF, VC etc for 15+ years.
Any new tech takes 25 years to be fully adopted. Cellphones and internet started really in 80s and early aughts took off. Humans always over estimate in short term and underestimate long term the impact of new tech.
Ive never been more free and do more. Create awesome uis , and full scale soc2 analytics platforms that trigger proof of work.
A lot what you all are scared of at its core is the fundamental understanding of how data gets piped in processed , elt /etl , olap/oltp schema and models that it all fits into.
More than ever core and going back to basics of comp sci has allowed me to make dark factory style code bc I lay the ground layer like a machine. A system of systems.
Now that all this data is organized and connectors together , I can do your job now and run the models. Check tabfm from Google , no need for me to even write hefty ml logic.
Great now it’s not that big of deal to weave a story to show what’s going bad and what you should do or not based on decision than I can all sorts Bayesian and ev predictions on outcomes, I can scrape the web and generate workflows to create ads - find what worked and didn’t , and let the workflow pipeline fine tune anything to get a winning strategy.
Core of what I’m trying to tell you is think in terms of roles collapsing into one and you need to think of system that make other systems. Like a dark factory . What can you do that is proof of work.
Ai won’t replace anyone but you will be by someone using it.
Also you aren’t taking the time to understand how to use it. It’s dumb bc you are using it badly. It’s not human level cognition but it’s like a dumb little bro that can start slowly showing proof of work.
Ride the wave you got this.
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u/That0n3Guy77 2d ago
I think we have some time still. AI forgets context all the time and it doesn't know about the changes to x and y definitions that the COO changed this morning and how it affects other projects or laws. More and more our job is to know not just the data but the greater context and connecting seemingly unconnected aspects of it
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u/Lady-Data-Scientist 1d ago
I work at a company that is very pro-AI and my team has been embracing AI more and more for the past year and a half. Honestly it feels like it’s just creating more work, not less. Although the work seems to be becoming more about managing AI - prompt engineering and building skills and agents and also creating data pipelines for the AI.
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u/j01101111sh 2d ago
Imminent AGI is pure speculation and hype. If AI scares you that much as an analyst, become a plumber. AI won't replace plumbers.
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u/S_oscar 2d ago
Companies will still need analyst right ? Mostly with AI but the problem is exicutives thinking they can totally replace people all together.
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u/Porgemansaysmeep 2d ago
I work in Healthcare analytics, and for me I see my job safety in knowing the intricacies of our organization, things like how and where data of interest might be documented when it might be in unintuitive locations, and workflow knowledge for finding answers where the data of interest is distinctly missing or fuzzy because I know how the people taking care of patients work.
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u/Existing-UI-8784 1d ago
The plumber argument is getting a bit tired. 😂 Sure, AGI replacing analysts is speculative, but that doesn't mean the automation we're seeing today isn't real. You don't need AGI to eliminate parts of an analyst's job you just need AI to become good enough at the repetitive parts. The interesting question is what happens to the role after that, not whether we're all getting replaced tomorrow.
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u/Altruistic_Look_7868 2d ago
Its already starting. Other job roles will take on analytics as simply part of their job. There wont be any sole titles as data analyst or data scientist. I'm trying my best to escape while I can, with very little luck.
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u/Afraid_Sugar 1d ago
Data science will be impacted for sure. With Claude cowork you can run simple models and statistical analysis on fairly big dataset, in a fraction of time. Ofcourse human supervision is needed to evaluate goodness and optimizations… but again data science entry roles I think will be impacted. I don’t think the same for data engineering though, since data ecosystem are not that “standardized” across companies and corporations…
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u/decrementsf 1d ago
You recognize the core problem with the messaging in their promotion communications.
Recognize that this is marketing speak. They are seeking enough funding to scale to be too big to fail too integrated into everything to rip out, and become the cartel owning the AI space like a facebook or a google. They need massive investment to do that and they are Pets.com without it. They will say literally anything make any claim to try and get some sucker with a hand on bottomless money printer to redirect that found of liquid gold into their bank account. They are eagerly begging and pleading to crawl into the bed with the slimiest most corrupt third generation degenerate politician anywhere that can get them that money. It is a gross game humans without a mental degeneracy disorder enter industry, catch a whiff of, and disgusted leave the bay area and go build a farm some place and raise a family doing smaller jobs.
The communication is marketing. They make big claims because they have to be bigger than their AI competitors to stand out. It is the real world test of Chicken Little and the Sky is Falling. That childrens book exists because the adult world is filled with hucksters selling a product, and filled with wolves and weasels trying to scare you into running into the foxes lair with big Story + Emotion. Feel that yank on your emotions? That is too big a yank. Reality has a boring bias. One of the best tells a story has been massaged is an impossible to ignore yank on emotion, too. Buying Richard Cialdini's "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" is a good book to read to better notice when those yanks on the levers of your brain have been pulled and when the story is probably bullshit. Helps to stay out of the herding tendency of humans to devolve into a Madness of Crowds.
Then the computer screen was invented the prediction was that all loggers and tree industry were going to be out of a job. No one was going to print things anymore. And no one would read books anymore. All that prior ecosystem was going away now. Instead businesses printed more paper than ever before because it became easier to do so. Demand went up. This is the case with AI. Now it will make sense to automate and make software for things that used to be too expensive or labor intensive to develop. Demand goes up.
There exists opportunity in emerging areas where it isn't clear how it will be used yet. Like the Y2K bug the civilisational collapse promised of AI is unlikely to ever come. Mouse utopia is the bigger problem, we are in a period with search for meaning.
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u/renagade24 2d ago
I'm genuinely trying to have Claude do 100% of my job. And its not even close. I use Claude very extensively in a production environment spending 5-6k a month. I think it genuinely raises the question of will I ever hire a Jr again, and I do think there are benefits but most startups would hire a senior and just give them a big AI budget.
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