Pluralistic: Bragging about replacing coders with AI is a sales-pitch (05 Aug 2025)


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Bragging about replacing coders with AI is a sales-pitch (permalink)

We spend a lot of time talking about AI's technical capabilities: what it can do now, what it might do tomorrow, what it will never do. But AI is only secondarily a technological phenomenon; it is primarily a financial phenomenon, hundreds of billions of dollars in investment capital in search of a return.

The return on that capital only comes from one place: workers' wages. AI – as a financial phenomenon – represents that AI will a) replace, and/or; b) frighten workers to the point where more of the revenues generated by firms that buy AI tools will be returned to executives and shareholders, at the expense of their workforce.

This is why AI bosses are so eager to cite statistics – conjured out of thin air, without any backing – about how AI is about to replace the majority of workers:

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/07/will-your-job-survive-ai/

And it's why tech companies that are peddling AI tools boast so brazenly about how many programmers' work can be replaced by AI:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andy-jassy-8b1615_one-of-the-most-tedious-but-critical-tasks-activity-7232374162185461760-AdSz/

After all, tech workers were – until recently – the princes of labor. Despite infinitesimal union density in the tech sector, tech workers were in such high demand that they could tell their bosses to go fuck themselves – and keep their jobs. Those bosses knew that a worker who quit during the morning scrum could have a better job with a rival firm before evening cocktails.

While tech bosses cultivated a chuminess with these workers, treating them as peers (temporarily embarrassed founders, not employees) and sitting down for "town halls," they clearly hated this and wanted nothing more than to put these arrogant pismires in their place. The instant tech labor's supply caught up with demand, these bosses mass-fired their precious tech workers, canceled town halls ("Not a good use of my time" -M. Zuckerberg), and told workers that the "sweet spot" was a 60-hour work-week:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/27/some-animals/#are-more-equal-than-others

Facebook announced a 5% across-the-board layoff and doubled its executives' bonuses – on the same day. They fired thousands of workers and then hired a single AI researcher for $200m:

https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/07/10/meta-lured-ai-exec-away-from-apple-with-blockbuster-200m-pay-package

Whatever else all this is, it's a performance. It's a way of demonstrating the efficacy of the product they're hoping your boss will buy and replace you with: Remember when techies were prized beyond all measure, pampered and flattered? AI is SO GOOD at replacing workers that we are dragging these arrogant little shits out by their hoodies and firing them over Interstate 280 with a special, AI-powered trebuchet. Imagine how many of the ungrateful useless eaters who clog up your payroll *you will be able to vaporize when you buy our product!*

Which is why you should always dig closely into announcements about AI-driven tech layoffs. It's true that tech job listings are down 36% since ChatGPT's debut – but that's pretty much true of all job listings:

https://apnews.com/article/ai-layoffs-tech-industry-jobs-ece82b0babb84bf11497dca2dae952b5

And the major decline in tech hiring isn't the result of hiring far fewer programmers – the tech companies have mostly cut back on hiring marketers, administrative assistants, and HR staff.

The whole fucking economy is in freefall. It's so bad that Trump just fired the country's head labor statistician and pledged to replace her with a flunky who wouldn't produce numbers "that made him look bad":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twNjon4tp84

The tech industry has changed. During the lockdowns, tech companies trumpeted their hiring sprees a performance of growth, staged for pandemic-panicked investors. Now, tech companies trumped their layoffs as a performance of AI's technical excellence, aimed at potential AI customers and credulous investors stampeded by FOMO.

Hey look at this (permalink)


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Object permanence (permalink)

#15yrsago Stuff: Oliver-Sacks-like account of pathological hoarders https://memex.craphound.com/2010/08/05/stuff-oliver-sacks-like-account-of-pathological-hoarders/

#10yrsago David Byrne explains the streaming music ripoff https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/opinion/sunday/open-the-music-industrys-black-box.html

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#10yrsago WATCH: Elizabeth Warren rescues Planned Parenthood, excoriates misogynist GOP creeps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeilHs9kZ2g

#10yrsago India’s porn ban collapses in less than 48 hours https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-33783539

#10yrsago Parenting and the Internet: the smarter, missing third way https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/05/what-is-missing-from-the-kids-internet

#10yrsago Idaho court strikes down anti-whistleblower “ag-gag” law https://www.acluidaho.org/en/news/idaho-ag-gag-law-ruled-unconstitutional-federal-court

#10yrsago Actual questions from my Green Card questionnaire https://memex.craphound.com/2015/08/05/actual-questions-from-my-green-card-questionnaire/

#10yrsago Germany’s top prosecutor fired for bringing “treason” charge against Netzpolitik https://web.archive.org/web/20150807201032/https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/world/article/German-prosecutor-accuses-gov-t-of-meddling-in-6423563.php

#5yrsago Qanon is magical thinking https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/05/behavioral-v-contextual/#magical-thinking

#5yrsago Trump wants to force you to invest in failing fossil fuel companies https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/05/behavioral-v-contextual/#crybabies

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#5yrsago GE's billion dollar tax-fraud https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/05/behavioral-v-contextual/#ge-fraud

#5yrsago Contextual ads can save media https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/05/behavioral-v-contextual/#contextual-ads

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

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Recent appearances (permalink)


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Latest books (permalink)


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Upcoming books (permalink)

  • Canny Valley: A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025

  • Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
    https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

  • Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

  • Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

  • The Memex Method, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

  • The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI, a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026


Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Slashdot (https://slashdot.org).

Currently writing:

  • "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. (1053 words yesterday, 21600 words total).

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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