this post was submitted on 04 May 2026
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299
Sam Altman says the quiet part out loud, confirming some companies are ‘AI washing’ by blaming unrelated layoffs on the technology (fortune.com)
submitted 6 hours ago by sanitation@lemmy.radio to c/technology@lemmy.world
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Original Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1t2xz7z/sam_altman_says_the_quiet_part_out_loud/

all 24 comments
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[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 19 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (2 children)

Meanwhile:

Productivity gains from AI are appearing in many of the same fields where entry-level employment is starting to decline. Employment among software developers aged 22–25 has plummeted nearly 20% since 2024, even as their older colleagues' headcount grows. The pattern repeats in other jobs with higher levels of AI exposure, like customer service. Meanwhile, firm surveys indicate executives expect this trend to accelerate, with planned headcount reductions outpacing recent cuts. Translation: The disruption is targeted and just beginning.

https://hai.stanford.edu/news/inside-the-ai-index-12-takeaways-from-the-2026-report

[–] mabeledo@lemmy.world 21 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

This looks more like senior staff being forced to pick up more work with the same pay.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 hour ago

There's already an increased productivity KPI at the corpo I work at. They expect faster completion of deliverables by some percentage as AI adoption grows (imposed).

[–] Verdorrterpunkt@feddit.org 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I do wonder where all the non-juniors are spawning in, i guess the it will be time to whine about a shortage then.

[–] Flower@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

They assume AI is only to get much better and will be able to replace higher expertise levels every year until everybody developer is replaced.

[–] MalReynolds@piefed.social 2 points 54 minutes ago

You assume long term planning ? Haw haw. Line must go up this quarter!

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 6 points 3 hours ago

I mean I agree to an extent but also of course he would say that. Him saying this means less than nothing.

[–] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 43 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

This doesn't seem particularly shocking for him to say, pointing out that his product is being used as a scapegoat seems like sensible reputation management.

[–] 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 hours ago

I mean it's also kind of true though...

AI is taking some jobs, in situations where the limiting factor is the rate at which work can be done rather than the skills required to do it. Say you have five people in PR, of which three are responsible for trawling through sources to find out what's actually being said about the company, and two are responsible for writing press releases. The jobs of two of the people trawling through sources could be replaced with AI, as the limiting factor is the amount of posts, documents and stories you can read. While you'd still need an overseer to fact check and collate, that sort of work can be done much faster than actually reading and finding sources. If the company also lays off one of the people responsible for writing press releases, however, that would be unrelated to AI as that sort of job isn't replaceable by AI (right now at least) due to the majority of the work being something that probabilistic models just aren't correct enough to do, so that'd be an unrelated layoff being blamed on AI, even if whoever orders it genuinely believes that AI has replaced the job.

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 83 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

Are we in the era of "Altman says" news already?

[–] akwd169@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 minutes ago* (last edited 9 minutes ago)

Ugh god im so happy its not just me sick of this stuff... reddit (is trash) technology sub has literally become post after post of

Sam Altman says this

Sam Altman says that

Sam Altman says things

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says hes butthurt

Anthropics Mythos this

Anthropic Mythos that

Jensen says Chinas winning bro just let me sell to them

Mythos

Mythos

Sam altman

Sam

Sam

Mythos

Mythos

Jensen

Mythos

Sam

Sam

Just shut the fuck up already

[–] cRazi_man@europe.pub 31 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Altman says, Musk says, Polymarket says, etc etc seems to be what mainstream news sites focus on a lot now. It takes a lot of filter words to make my news RSS feed tolerable now.

In the early days of social media, social media used to steal attention/clicks from news sites by regurgitating news site material. Now news sites are trying to compete with social media by regurgitating whatever shit shows up on social media sites.

[–] yenahmik@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

I've learned to ignore pretty much any article that is about what someone is saying. Report about things being done. Talking heads are not a headline.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

How does one confirm something they have no way of knowing with certainty?…

[–] ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 3 points 2 hours ago

He knows his shit can’t do those jobs

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 6 points 3 hours ago

They ask AI!

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 points 3 hours ago

What? You mean when they are giving excuses for layoffs, the excuses are NOT the real reason? I've ALWAYS assumed they were ALWAYS telling us the truth! How can they do this? My entire world-view is smashed! I'm shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you!

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 2 points 3 hours ago

I'm not surprised. It was very apparent after interest rates rose that tech companies had to immediately start worrying about making money and not making long term bets which might make money. When you aren't making as much software as you used to, why have that many programmers in payroll?

[–] ThanksObama@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 hours ago

Wow. So brave of him.

[–] GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world 7 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Trying to get the people back on his side after signing those military contracts? Fuck off and die!

[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 hours ago

As if we were ever on his side in the first place

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 5 points 5 hours ago

A lot of companies building AI datacenters, are laying off people to afford the gamble. Oracle, Meta the biggest ones. So there's a real burning of core bridges effect to get into the bubble gold rush.