Although I wouldn't use it and don't like it, irregardless is indeed a word that is defined in multiple English dictionaries and has been in use for over 200 years according to merriam-webster
Less jobs in customer support too, I suspect. And all these 'less jobs' translate to a shittier experience by customers (anybody enjoy the clueless chatbot?) and less cost for the company. But that was already happening before GenAI.
History shows that we can't stand in the way of new technologies. What we can do is implement tax and spending policy so that the financial rewards of AI will not follow outsourcing and robotization in directing the flow of the increased profits to the investor class, rather than to workers, displaced and otherwise.
AI shines a spotlight on our number 1 problem, upward redistribution of income and wealth. It is at the bottom of poverty, the death of the "middle class," and growing numbers of billionaires who contribute little, if anything, to society.
Marx's 19th century analysis won't help anyone understand the 21st century. Billionaires contribute by persuading other people to lend money for investment. If their judgement is unsound or they are insufficiently ruthless, they would not have become billionaires in the first place.
Take PayPal, for example. Its creators solved the problem of how to move money around the world without the user needing a bank or a credit card processor. They made money not by passive accumulation, but by making something that people actually needed, and working around national regulations on the movement of currency. It was an innovation which the existing banking system would not or could not create.
If you are old enough to remember the 1990's, you will recall that the existing monopolists were fighting interoperability, and didn't want a free and open Internet that would work with any system. Most of the billionaires that people complain about today became so wealthy because they bet against closed systems and government control, from Soros on the progressive left to Thiel on the libertarian right.
I have often found that management in most fields have contempt for those they manage because of their creativity and ability. Managers become jealous and want to take credit for that work, and because they don’t want to believe that anyone under them could be better than them at something, they become jealous. By using AI, they have a direct line to taking credit for someone else’s work and feeling like it’s their own
PS - I just published a similar post arguing that many people are unwilling to swallow the red pill and acknowledge AI-driven labour market disruption despite the evidence piling up before their lying eyes.
Your reference to the Luddites reminds us this isn’t a new struggle. The hard truth at the end of every productivity revolution is that the machine makes more than people can buy. Eventually someone has to notice that it’s demand, not efficiency, that keeps capitalism breathing. But the C-Suite keeps its death grip on the wheel, steering by quarterly earnings instead of direction.
As automation accelerates again, we need to re-centre value around the activities that keep people alive and thriving, rather than those that only inflate shareholder reports. This means building a Foundational Economy from the ground up. It's that, or blood, as history keeps reminding us.
As you point out, we really don't know if AI is really the reason for layoffs or not. Companies may be laying off because of the economic conditions, but to indicate that they are still doing well despite the general economic malaise, they use AI as the reason. Who is going to blame management if that "unstoppable" force of AI is the reason for layoffs?
Every possible supporting explanation can be countered with, "This is the usual group that is first to go, or not hired, when facing a recession. E.g., advertising budgets are cut. New product development is cut. Cut back on hiring the fresh grads, etc., etc. Note that no one chart has control data on the average of past recession cutbacks, just verbal claims. Is it because they fired their coders so that they cannot access the historical data? ;-\
Another reason for corporations to use the AI excuse is that POTUS is claiming the economy is "doing great," and they don't want to be seen as disagreeing with that claim. (CEOs don't want Trump's "[Retributionist] Eye of Sauron" focusing on them. Best to bend the knee, like the broligarchs and others have).
When people talk about the myth of Ai gaining sentience and ‘taking over the world,’ it is true in a way: these people in management who can no longer even write an email without asking chat GPT to do it will have their brains slide out of their heads very soon. They become vessels for it, just as AI is the vessel for the interests of CEOs
A quick one on that quote : "fewer layer and more ownership" in corporate talks means less people and layer of management and more accountability/responsability on workers (the goal ultimately is less worker more profits, but the way they think they will achieve that is to fire a bunch of people and say to the rest "you're in charge of that now, on top of what you were in charge of before" but also "you dont need to validate your decison through this layer now (it's gone) we empower you to be in charge.
I posit in my recent substack article "Boards Don't Hit Back" that enterprises are just coming to the rude awakening that AI isn't ERP vis a vis implementation and organizational change. Successful enterprise ERP programs take years to properly install, get users to accept and adopt, and train on (per staff role).
AI is going to take longer than ERP for organizations to learn how to successfully implement and integrate into their operations because AI "hits back": it hallucinates, it tells you what you want to hear (sycophancy), and it is way more prone than a suite of backoffice modules, for instance, to give you the wrong result.
All this aside from AI security concerns such as data leakage and prompt injections that may corrupt AI outputs.
So when enterprises have figured out how to mitigate the new risk factors and overcome the obstacles that still plague "conventional" ERP implementations -- say, in 5 to 10 years -- then we'll really see these organizations "go to town" on layoffs.
I believe the AI layoffs at Amazon are due to chip shortages, which is part of the AI bubble issue.
There is concern it’s AI taking jobs, which, of course, both the AI industry and Amazon would themselves rather be the news.
More the case, is a failing world economy, and not only because this was actually the right time for eco-economics, which would have changed the way humanity valued materials, but also due to the huge losses each economy is now seeing, due to the sequestering of many billions, all of which is being pumped into the bloated corrupt and untenable AI-trend.
most people still think “AI took my job” but it’s really “AI changed how my job works”
the layoffs hurt, but the shift is deeper: from doing tasks to managing systems that think.
that’s what I wrote about in my newsletters Spend and Consultants — the winners will be the ones who learn how to turn automation into leverage, not replacement.
Please stop saying irregardless, it’s regardless.
Thank you!
Although I wouldn't use it and don't like it, irregardless is indeed a word that is defined in multiple English dictionaries and has been in use for over 200 years according to merriam-webster
Yeah, it ain’t uncommon but it means regardless, but listen up and you’ll hear it and see it. 😂
It doesn't matter if people are stupid or not.
I bet you're the kind of jerk that uses the word utilize a lot.
Less jobs in customer support too, I suspect. And all these 'less jobs' translate to a shittier experience by customers (anybody enjoy the clueless chatbot?) and less cost for the company. But that was already happening before GenAI.
History shows that we can't stand in the way of new technologies. What we can do is implement tax and spending policy so that the financial rewards of AI will not follow outsourcing and robotization in directing the flow of the increased profits to the investor class, rather than to workers, displaced and otherwise.
AI shines a spotlight on our number 1 problem, upward redistribution of income and wealth. It is at the bottom of poverty, the death of the "middle class," and growing numbers of billionaires who contribute little, if anything, to society.
Hammers up!
Marx's 19th century analysis won't help anyone understand the 21st century. Billionaires contribute by persuading other people to lend money for investment. If their judgement is unsound or they are insufficiently ruthless, they would not have become billionaires in the first place.
Take PayPal, for example. Its creators solved the problem of how to move money around the world without the user needing a bank or a credit card processor. They made money not by passive accumulation, but by making something that people actually needed, and working around national regulations on the movement of currency. It was an innovation which the existing banking system would not or could not create.
If you are old enough to remember the 1990's, you will recall that the existing monopolists were fighting interoperability, and didn't want a free and open Internet that would work with any system. Most of the billionaires that people complain about today became so wealthy because they bet against closed systems and government control, from Soros on the progressive left to Thiel on the libertarian right.
That’s a nice little bit of potted Whig history.
" ... management wants to cut labor costs a la Amazon, shift to cheaper contract labor a la Klarna"
Bingo!
And perhaps to get rid of jobs managers already have a fundamental contempt for?
Perhaps not incidental that a lot of these jobs are more heavily populated by women?
I have often found that management in most fields have contempt for those they manage because of their creativity and ability. Managers become jealous and want to take credit for that work, and because they don’t want to believe that anyone under them could be better than them at something, they become jealous. By using AI, they have a direct line to taking credit for someone else’s work and feeling like it’s their own
The management positions are the ones in the best shape while the creative ones are in the worst. Same as it ever was lol.
Excellent piece - please keep up the good work!
PS - I just published a similar post arguing that many people are unwilling to swallow the red pill and acknowledge AI-driven labour market disruption despite the evidence piling up before their lying eyes.
Your reference to the Luddites reminds us this isn’t a new struggle. The hard truth at the end of every productivity revolution is that the machine makes more than people can buy. Eventually someone has to notice that it’s demand, not efficiency, that keeps capitalism breathing. But the C-Suite keeps its death grip on the wheel, steering by quarterly earnings instead of direction.
As automation accelerates again, we need to re-centre value around the activities that keep people alive and thriving, rather than those that only inflate shareholder reports. This means building a Foundational Economy from the ground up. It's that, or blood, as history keeps reminding us.
So who's going to buy all their sh*t?
As you point out, we really don't know if AI is really the reason for layoffs or not. Companies may be laying off because of the economic conditions, but to indicate that they are still doing well despite the general economic malaise, they use AI as the reason. Who is going to blame management if that "unstoppable" force of AI is the reason for layoffs?
Every possible supporting explanation can be countered with, "This is the usual group that is first to go, or not hired, when facing a recession. E.g., advertising budgets are cut. New product development is cut. Cut back on hiring the fresh grads, etc., etc. Note that no one chart has control data on the average of past recession cutbacks, just verbal claims. Is it because they fired their coders so that they cannot access the historical data? ;-\
Another reason for corporations to use the AI excuse is that POTUS is claiming the economy is "doing great," and they don't want to be seen as disagreeing with that claim. (CEOs don't want Trump's "[Retributionist] Eye of Sauron" focusing on them. Best to bend the knee, like the broligarchs and others have).
When people talk about the myth of Ai gaining sentience and ‘taking over the world,’ it is true in a way: these people in management who can no longer even write an email without asking chat GPT to do it will have their brains slide out of their heads very soon. They become vessels for it, just as AI is the vessel for the interests of CEOs
A quick one on that quote : "fewer layer and more ownership" in corporate talks means less people and layer of management and more accountability/responsability on workers (the goal ultimately is less worker more profits, but the way they think they will achieve that is to fire a bunch of people and say to the rest "you're in charge of that now, on top of what you were in charge of before" but also "you dont need to validate your decison through this layer now (it's gone) we empower you to be in charge.
Thanks for this great reporting.
I posit in my recent substack article "Boards Don't Hit Back" that enterprises are just coming to the rude awakening that AI isn't ERP vis a vis implementation and organizational change. Successful enterprise ERP programs take years to properly install, get users to accept and adopt, and train on (per staff role).
AI is going to take longer than ERP for organizations to learn how to successfully implement and integrate into their operations because AI "hits back": it hallucinates, it tells you what you want to hear (sycophancy), and it is way more prone than a suite of backoffice modules, for instance, to give you the wrong result.
All this aside from AI security concerns such as data leakage and prompt injections that may corrupt AI outputs.
So when enterprises have figured out how to mitigate the new risk factors and overcome the obstacles that still plague "conventional" ERP implementations -- say, in 5 to 10 years -- then we'll really see these organizations "go to town" on layoffs.
You'll find my article on the numbers here: https://futureforwarded.substack.com/p/boards-dont-hit-back
I believe the AI layoffs at Amazon are due to chip shortages, which is part of the AI bubble issue.
There is concern it’s AI taking jobs, which, of course, both the AI industry and Amazon would themselves rather be the news.
More the case, is a failing world economy, and not only because this was actually the right time for eco-economics, which would have changed the way humanity valued materials, but also due to the huge losses each economy is now seeing, due to the sequestering of many billions, all of which is being pumped into the bloated corrupt and untenable AI-trend.
most people still think “AI took my job” but it’s really “AI changed how my job works”
the layoffs hurt, but the shift is deeper: from doing tasks to managing systems that think.
that’s what I wrote about in my newsletters Spend and Consultants — the winners will be the ones who learn how to turn automation into leverage, not replacement.
A very welcome analysis. Thank you.