Workforce Automation

Silicon Valley has a new business model: fire humans, hire GPUs. Meta is planning to cut roughly 20% of its workforce — about 16,000 people — to offset the staggering cost of its AI infrastructure ambitions. Reuters broke the story on March 14, citing sources who say top executives have already told senior leaders to start identifying where the axe falls. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone called it “speculative reporting about theoretical approaches.” Translation: we’re not announcing it yet. ...

When billionaires start worrying about their children’s job prospects, the rest of us should probably pay attention. “What will our kids do?” That’s the question Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas — the bank’s first-ever “global embodied AI strategist” — says was the single most common thing investors asked at last week’s TMT Conference in San Francisco. Not revenue projections. Not competitive moats. What happens to the next generation of workers. ...

The numbers started quietly. A few hundred here, a thousand there. But this week, the trickle became a flood — and the conversation about AI replacing human workers shifted from theoretical to terrifyingly real. Block CEO Jack Dorsey just axed nearly half his company. Four thousand jobs, gone in a single announcement. His message to the rest of corporate America? “I don’t think we’re early to this realization. I think most companies are late.” ...

There’s a moment in every technological revolution when theory becomes visceral. When the PowerPoints about “productivity gains” turn into 4,000 people cleaning out their desks. On Thursday, Block — the company behind Square, Cash App, and Afterpay — delivered that moment for the AI era. CEO Jack Dorsey announced the company is slashing its workforce by roughly 40%. More than 4,000 employees gone. From over 10,000 people down to just under 6,000. The reason, stated without euphemism: “intelligence tools.” ...

An 84-year-old senator stood at Stanford last Friday and told a room full of future tech workers that America has “not a clue” what’s about to hit it. Then he proposed freezing the construction of AI data centers until Congress catches up. Bernie Sanders isn’t wrong about the problem. He might be dangerously wrong about the solution. The Stanford Bombshell Sanders shared the stage with Congressman Ro Khanna — the guy who literally represents Silicon Valley — at an event titled “Who Controls the Future of AI: The Oligarchs or the People.” Subtlety wasn’t on the agenda. ...