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this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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They expect layoffs. They're just going to blame AI for it.
Exactly this... Even ones actually attributed to AI will likely be an overreach that won't be realized until after a person's life has been totally upended... Shit's gonna be bleak
This is too dismissive.
Industrialization and automation has already eliminated an entire class of work that was otherwise there.
In a hunter gathered society or an early industrial society there was always work for everyone, in modern capitalist society, there quite frankly isn't, and that leads to huge numbers of people just being cast aside.
And AI may wipe out a huge number of the rest. I genuinely can't possibly fathom how it will do anything but exacerbate every single one of society's problems.
LLMs are not and will never be good enough to replace human labor. Augment it, sure, and that could lead to fewer jobs but that's not generally what happens. They are, however, good enough for execs to think they can replace human labor.
They don't have to be as good to replace us.
It even can be a feature if AI isn't as good as the people they are replacing. For example, in the case of call centers/help lines, it might be more desirable to have a shitty system to discourage callers yet have plausible deniability…
I find I'm referencing Cory Doctorow a lot lately…
I was in a meeting at a credit card company about 2 decades ago where a VP said exactly that - without the AI part.
The issue is that those bots are worse in completely unpredictable ways. Like when some airline passengers were given incorrect information which led to the airline being sued and having to pay the made up offer as well as damages & tribunal fees. The bots might be unhelpful, but to the disservice of the company's financials
I had a funny "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" moment the other day... when reflecting that LLMs mean I don't learn the details of Rust, or Python, or Perl, or VLC plugins, or systemd service configuration files, or anything like that anymore - I just learn how to work with the LLM to ensure that we are getting the results we need from the tech of the moment.
It reminded me of the stasis - clone - transfer doctors in Down and Out, anything complicated they just reach for the "ultimate solution to everything" rather than trying to be good at all the specialty surgeries and other skills that old fashioned doctors used to study.
The AI doesn't need to be better than the professional it's replacing, it just needs to be more cost effective than the barely capable outsourced worker the jobs was going to be given anyway.
Not really, because when an employee fails their task it's the employee's responsibility, and if it's catastrophic enough it can lead to firings or lawsuits. But as soon as it's a chatbot, the liability fully rests on the company. How long will insurance protect those companies too?
It has been 20 years since this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourced_(film)
Yeah, we've got an Indian branch of my local office, but my local office still has more employees than it did when I joined 12 years ago, and they were growing rather quickly at that time.
The AI won't replace labor, automation/robotics will do that. AI will provide the brain to operate the automation properly. We've had the automation for a long time, the AI is making the difference.
They are working very hard on the intersection of AI and Automation to replace human labor.
Option 2, please: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
A nail gun won't replace roofers, but it does mean you need less of them.
A mail truck doesn't replace the postman, but compared to the walking postman - the truck enables fewer mailmen to deliver more mail.
A C++ compiler doesn't replace the programmer, but it does enable one programmer to do the work of 10 assembly code programmers.
LLMs are going to be another "force multiplier" tool, in certain fields - when used correctly which not everybody will do.
There is a question of timeline. Maybe in 10+ years, but not 2.
The early wave of layoffs in the sector "due to AI" were at the same time as the interest rate went up, pushing all tech companies to start focusing on profit. A lot of unprofitable divisions were cut because it stopped making financial sense to invest in products that didn't have day 1 revenue.
You're now seeing companies doing layoffs and claiming AI to either hide that development in their companies have stalled or they are taking advantage of their new shiny remote work platforms to push wages down by shifting workers to places with lower cost of living.
AI labor isn't worth its tokens, even when they are heavily discounted to gain market share. It might be in a decade, but not now.
I keep seeing these comments where AI is hailed as the next industrial revolution, but I think they all miss the point.
Industrialization created jobs. There were fewer skilled jobs lost than new skilled jobs created. It then created the need for more knowledge based jobs, like civil engineers.
The AI lobby is doing the opposite. It targets higher paid skilled jobs. If they were to succeed, they would give birth to the opposite of the Industrial Revolution.