‘A.I.-Washing’ Layoffs? + Why L.L.M.s Can’t Write Well + Tokenmaxxing
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It's your day to play. It's your morning to make the most of.
It's your way to love.
It's your climate to consider.
It's your answer to what should I watch? It's your money to save.
It's your song to analyze line by line. It's your 10 ways to find a little calm. It's your world to understand. The New York Times. Find out more at nytimes.com slash your world.
I just read the most heartwarming news this morning that I wanted to share with you, Kevin. What's that? The UK government has withdrawn a proposal to let AI companies train on copyrighted works after a backlash from artists like Dua Lipa. Did you see this? No. Dua Lipa said, don't start now with this AI. My sugar boo? She litigating, Kevin. She's making some new rules and she's saying we're not going to train on my copyrighted works.
Wow.
And that's why she is a queen. And so Dua Lipa, if you're listening, we salute you.
Yeah. Dua Lipa, you're a Dua Keepa.
Period. Dua Lipa said, artist rights.
Wow. I'm Kevin Roos, a tech columnist at the New York Times. I'm Casey Newt from Platformer. And this is Hard Fork.
This week, a big wave of tech layoffs is raising the question, has AI job loss truly begun? Then, writer Jasmine Sun is here to help us answer the question, why are chatbots bad at writing? And finally, it's token maxing time. Why tech companies are building leaderboards to measure who is spending the most on AI.
Well, Casey, for years now, we've been monitoring for signs of an AI job apocalypse. Yeah, we've been monitoring the situation. It's true. And over the past few weeks, I think we've gotten some early indications that something is happening in the labor market, especially for tech workers.
Yeah, we have certainly heard CEOs of companies announcing layoffs, invoking AI as a reason that it is happening. And so that has gotten our attention. Yeah, so just a couple examples from the last few weeks.
Last week, Atlassian announced a 10% reduction in its staff, about 1,600 jobs, that they said were going to help them fund further investment in AI and enterprise sales. That came on the heels of a big round of layoffs at Block, the financial tech company formerly known as Square. which said that it was cutting its staff by about 40% or about 4,000 jobs, saying that they were shifting the way that they were working to use smaller and flatter teams. And then the big one that folks are expecting maybe as soon as this week is that Meta is reportedly poised to lay off 20% or more of the entire company. This was reported by Reuters last Friday, who said that their sources had told them that Meta was preparing to cut as many as 16,000 jobs, the largest layoffs at that company since late 22 or early 2023, when they laid off 20,000 people.
So as of this recording, that hasn't happened yet that we know of, but I know that people at Meta are very on edge and are awaiting the further news about their jobs.
Meta, after this story came out, told Reuters that it was, quote, speculative reporting.
Which, if you're not familiar with the language deployed by Meta communication staffers, means this is happening, but we don't want to tell you it's happening yet.
Correct.
So, Casey, I want to hear what you make of these layoffs, but first we should do our disclosures. I work for The New York Times, which is suing OpenAI, Microsoft, and Perplexity.
And my fiancé works at Anthropic.
So, okay, Casey, what do you make of the fact that all these companies are referencing AI in some way as a reason for their layoffs?
Well, I think it's a little different at each company, Kevin. And I think we can make a decent case for and against the idea that AI is really driving the show at each of them. So maybe we should get into that. But at a highest level, I would say companies do continue to tell us now that AI is a significant factor in the reduction of these workforces? And sooner or later, I do think we're going to have to believe them.
Yeah, I think this is the early warning sign for a lot of people, especially in the tech industry, who are, I think,
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–6:28
2
Are recent tech layoffs really driven by A.I. or other factors?
6:28–22:08
3
What did Atlassian cite when announcing its 10% staff reduction?
22:08–32:23
4
How did Block’s leadership justify cutting roughly 40% of its workforce?
32:23–48:16
5
Why might Meta’s reported layoffs signal a shift toward A.I. infrastructure spending?
48:16–1:02:35
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from Hard Fork
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