While the exact impact of AI on the job market is still hazy, fears of an AI-triggered job apocalypse are nearing their peak.
Last week, Twitter co-founder and Block (formerly Square) CEO Jack Dorsey announced he was laying off 4,000 employees at his fintech company, informing investors that “intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company.”
“A significantly smaller team could do more work and do it better using the tools we’re building,” he said, adding, “Most companies would come to the same conclusions and make similar structural changes.”
Dorsey’s messages sent shivers down the spines of investors already on edge. Despite critics questioning claims like Dorsey’s, it is being argued that AI is not capable of replacing human jobs and that AI is merely being used as an excuse to carry out brutal layoffs.
Regardless of Dorsey’s actual intentions, his latest decision to fire half of his company’s employees deeply affected workers. As a former Block machine learning engineer, this is despite early warning signs told business insiderThat their jobs were slowly but surely being made redundant by technology.
“At some point you look around and say, ‘Oh my God, I’m not working that much anymore, right?'” said the worker, identified only as Kenji.
He added, “Certainly I realized I could be in line for redundancy.” “I didn’t think I’d get that far yet.”
However, Kenji being let go was no shock. For one, he was tasked with building systems to automatically detect fraud in the company, gradually reducing the need for human intervention over time.
“The first 30 seconds were holy sh*t,” he said. BI. “But then, when I read the whole thing, I was like, ‘Yeah, I get it.'”
Kenji’s experience is symptomatic of a broader trend underway in the tech industry. Tech giants have carried out rounds of massive layoffs while simultaneously pouring untold amounts of money into AI, clearly indicating their priorities.
Just earlier this week, bloomberg informed Oracle was planning to cut thousands of jobs as it faced a cash crunch stemming from its efforts to build an AI data center.
This is a frustrating reality, especially for those on the block, who were explicitly instructed by Dorsey to use AI — otherwise. Kenji argued that in some ways, workers were essentially encouraged to dig their own graves.
“Last year when we were strongly encouraged to use all these AI tools, we were laying the foundation for our own replacement,” he explains. BI. “If you show the tool how to do a task once or twice, it can take it from there.”
Still, a lot of pressing questions remain over the feasibility of AI and whether the technology can actually accomplish the tasks CEOs are hoping to automate. Some continue to argue that tech companies are addressing overhiring during the pandemic and that AI appears to be actively replacing jobs.
Dorsey’s claim that AI had led him to fire nearly half of his employees has raised considerable skepticism among former employees.
in an essay published by new York TimesFormer Square head of communications Aaron Zamost argued that “not even Block himself” knows whether AI is replacing work or whether the company’s announcement is “just a convenient and attractive new cover for typical corporate downsizing.”
Former Block employee Jason Karsh also argued that “this is not an AI story”. Tweet in early MarchAccused Dorsey of hiding an “organizational flaw” with a story about AI.
What continued layoffs in the tech industry will lead to in the long run remains to be seen. In addition to the ongoing fears over AI automation, the US economy is thousands of jobs are actively being lost Per month, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the ongoing recession has rattled the market this week.
While how much AI is contributing to this trend will continue to be hotly debated, it won’t be easy for those who helped lay the foundation for its own replacement.
“If I got a job tomorrow, I have no confidence that it also couldn’t be automated in a few years,” Kenji said. BI.
More on the block: Insiders say Jack Dorsey isn’t telling the real story about Block’s AI layoffs
