Amazon boss tells staff AI means their jobs are at risk in coming years
Amazon boss tells staff AI means their jobs are at risk in coming years
Andrew Jassy tells white collar workers that such technology means fewer people will be needed for some jobs
As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done
we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce
Are we done for?
Oh, gimme a break.
This jerk is telling his workers that all their jobs are in jeopardy all the time, year after year. No news here. It's just his thing.
Probably he's trying to keep up the fear - booo hooooo...
Seriously, there's a reason there's been horror stories of people crying at their desks at Amazon since the early 2000's. Because they've always treated everyone like they're completely expendable at all times. Horrific work culture.
Exactly this. And their jobs might actually be in jeopardy if their colleagues start working twice as hard. Product will reflect this though
But why? Why make them scared they'll lose their jobs at any moment Vs feeling secure?
If they're scared, they'll be seeking better employment, applying for other jobs whilst working this highly unstable one. Probably reduced productivity too, I wouldn't be as productive under that sort of negative environment.
Make them feel valued and secure though and they won't leave, there'll be less workplace issues for you to have to deal with, and they'll work harder.
Unless you see them as completely disposable because the law won't touch you and there will always be desperate people to fill those positions at any given time, fear is a ridiculous thing to want to instill in your workforce.
It's abuser tactics - "You're lucky you've got me, no-one else would have you, now take more shit." It's cheaper than making employees feel happy and valued. And yeah, some very successful companies absolutely see their employees as disposable. I'm hoping this'll become a problem for them when they've burned through the available pool of vulnerable staff, but we don't seem to be there yet.
But why? Why make them scared they'll lose their jobs
Overly bossy bosses often believe that people work more, or perform better this way.
That’s Amazon and many other big tech company cultures. Hostile hustle culture. You could always lose your job as you need to be a “top performer” to stay. They purposely let the “lowest performers” go on a regular basis.
No. Amazon has been trying to cut head count for years now. They were hoping RTO5 would do the trick but because every company is trying to do the same thing people didn’t have a ship to jump to.
“Our AI is so great!” Is a way to mask that their finances aren’t good and they dramatically made the wrong bet in 2021 hiring so much.
Honestly most of the time at Amazon you’re doing more meetings and red tape than you are coding so I don’t expect AI to magically fix shit for them.
Their shopping experience is so much worse than only 3 years ago. Whatever they are doing, they are doing it wrong.
Amazon is a technology company now. For a long time the storefront and logistics have been a tech demo for Amazon Web Services.
For instance: FreeRTOS
Even Bezos has acknowledged that companies really only last 30 years. They inevitably decline. Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos from his garage in Bellevue, Washington,[3] on July 5, 1994
The people who are predicting that AI will replace X% of jobs are usually not qualified to make that determination. They don't do those jobs, and they don't have any idea what is involved in those peoples jobs. They are way too high up the corporate ladder to have actually been doing any real work in the last 10 years. They were sold some AI product which promises to lay off thousands of workers, and they seem to have believed it implicitly.
What's sickening to me is how enthusiastic they seem to be about ruining their employees lives
Ironically, save for specific positions that require facetime and political shrewdness, it is these same prognosticators whose roles can most readily be fulfilled by Ai
It takes a special type of shithead to threaten peoples' jobs to their face without even knowing what the fuck they are talking about.
This is going to be the threat that EVERY employee will hear over the next several years, whenever they ask for any sort of a raise, promotion, etc. "Just be glad we don't replace you with AI."
yes, create a legion of angry, unemployed/unemployable people, that will go well for the capitalist system
Don’t worry, they’ve got the army + police at their feet to keep people in line!
unless the public are well organizedunemployed = more free time to organize!
Nice of him to give them the heads up, so they can all go find new jobs now. Sure would be poetic if they all just moved elsewhere and left Amazon understaffed.
Can we quit posting this baseless fear mongering? It is simply powerful people trying to demoralize workers and acting like it is legitimate news is playing into their hands.
Time for the AI teams to suddenly have tech issues.
"Sorry, the whole codebase is just gone! We have no idea what happened!"
"Must have been the S3 storage"
Stupid question but what is stopping the software engineers to poison the well?
Insert malicious code, self destructing functions, have entire batches of code lost or corrupted, hardware damaged, etc?
It's not a stupid question. From what I hear, people try stuff like this all the time, stuff like putting a bit of code on your employer's system that'll erase important files if you get shit canned and no longer appear on the payroll. It's why a lot of companies no longer give notice when ppl are fired, just have security walk them out. And unfortunately this stuff is often traceable, which means they're risking quite serious prosecution.
I don't like much of what I see, I think it's becoming clear that some new tech is going to have wide ranging and harmful effects. I'm not sure that doing luddite stuff will help but I can understand why people would think that way.
Nah, not stupid. But yeah it's hard to do without leaving a very clear trail. I assume most engineers want to keep their job and their income.
But programmers tend to use some form of a "versioning" system like git. This will record everyone's changes to the codebase, when a change was made, what was changed, who changed it. And it allows you to go back and revert changes if something important broke. Very convenient for programmers, less convenient for sabotage.
Stupid question but what is stopping the software engineers to poison the well?
Great question. I agree with other responses - it happens, and there's motive to hush it up, so we tend not to hear about it.
It's also just really hard to tell the difference after the fact between "Dave sabotaged us" and "no one knows how to do what Dave did".
But I'll add - there's currently little need motive sabotage AI implementations. Current generation AI is largely unable to deliver on what is promised, in a business sense. It does cool but useless things, like quickly generating low maturity code, and writing a summary any seven year old could have wtitten.
Current generation AI adds very little business value, while creating substantial risks. Nevermind that no one knows how Dave worked, now no one knows how our AI works, and it's so eager to please everyone that it lies at critical moments.
Companies playing around with current generation AI to boost next quarter's stocks will hit plenty of "find out" soon enough, with nothing beyond the natural consequences of ignoring their own engineers advice.
All that to say - if we see what looks like sabotage, it may well just be the natural consequences of stupidity.
10 years in jail is what's stopping them.
It's REALLY hard to create a dead man's switch that works, but also leaves no trace. Even if you delete the script after it executes, there's probably backups or logs that show what happened.
Something I think should be on the same level as "if buying isn't owning piracy isn't theft" is something like "if an ai/robot can take my job why should I have to work"
why should I have to work
Because landlords would like to keep their wealth extraction going.
In theory we could get solar panels and batteries for power, some cheap robots for growing food, but all land is owned.
On how about "the robot can take my job I only want the money"
Corporate goons always use fear as a tool. This coupled with fucking up the entire tech industry via layoffs, and suddenly engineer leverage basically flies out the window entirely. You can’t replace senior devs with AI. You can try and I will enjoy watching you fail.
You can't even replace junior devs with AI. This is a completely false narrative intended to demoralize workers into not exercising their market power.
Yeah, for clarity, I don’t think it can replace any dev. I mentioned senior because there’s a ton of soft skill and historical context involved that senior devs hold that is absolutely not replaceable. I’ve found AI to be helpful for grunt work and nothing else. It constantly chokes, even when being fed the entire codebase for reference.
Quick recap for future historians:
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for a really brief part of its history, humanity tried to give kindness a go. A half-hearted attempt at best, but there were things like DEI programs, for instance, attempting to create a gentler, more accepting world for everyone. At the very least, trying to appear human to the people they managed was seen as a good attribute for Leaders.
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some people felt that their God-given right to be assholes to everyone was being taken away (it's right there in the Bible: be a jerk to your neighbor, take away his job and f##k his wife)
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Assholes came back in full force, with a vengeance. Not that they had ever disappeared, but now they relished the opportunity to be openly mean for no reason again. Once again, True Leaders were judged by their ability to drain every drop of blood from their employees and take their still-beating hearts as an offering to the Almighty Shareholders.
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Ah yes those famous "Agents". They will of course write themselves, adapt themselves to changing environment and run on their own without any supervision.
Yes. Exactly. They'll also deploy upgrades to themselves painlessly. Thankfully that's never been a huge ongoing pain felt by everyone paying attention.
(I couldn't resisit adding a "yes, and" to your point.
Edit: And the AI agents will back themselves up correctly, too! We trained them on the activities of all currently living IT engineers, and the average of our work always results in a successful backup...
If that wasn't true, we would be having a new ransomware crisis every month...
I'm sure glad we live in one of the good timelines, and have plenty of clean correct code and configuration data to train our AI on!
(This is, of course, sarcasm. Companies that shift to AI IT agents today can expect to very quickly reach today's median IT outcome. There's not enough popcorn in the world for what is coming.)
Amazon is currently hemorrhaging executive level and above engineers. Amazon will have to be replacing these jobs with AI cause every one of value has already left/is leaving and filling those jobs with qualified people at that level is actually a lot more difficult than more junior level positions.
Well that’s just good, quality managing right there.
Exactly what a good leader would tell their team to motivate them. /s
if you don't boycott Amazon by now it's time to start. Don't buy from them don't work for them. Let them rot in the dark.
I get the feeling that simply working at Amazon means your job is at risk.
That's pretty much how it goes yeah lol
Out of all the jobs, the bosses job is the most replaceable
Yet they will never be replaced, sadly.
They get all of the credit and none of the blame.
Got to keep them scared.
Between AI and Robotics, we will likely have a permanently unemployed segment of close to 50%, or even more, within the next decade.
Not everyone will be able to be retrained to be a robotics engineer or AI programmer, and many, many jobs that are considered entry-level will disappear. Imagine a world where most fast food and retail workers are unemployed.
When 40% of America is unemployed, the government will be faced with 2 options - Universal Basic Income, or reducing the population by 40%. Which solution will each party embrace, and how will they accomplish their objectives?
Conclusions from a reductionist point of view. Circumstances, problems and solutions are generally complicated.
Moving on.
How's the view with your head in the sand?
Which solution will each party embrace, and how will they accomplish their objectives?
Both American partiesEach party will solve it the way they have solved climate change.
Can't wait for all the random deals on things when the AI randomly cuts prices of things or ships me pallets of things.
Edit: Things!
Did someone tell Amazon that some of the staff they will let go will have access to AI as well and will turn around and start competing with them? Someone should as AI is not just for corporations. In fact it is and may continue to benefit individuals and small teams more.
Ok.
What jobs?
No shit, right? Seems obvious. Applies to many more than just Amazon employees.
Time to head for greener pastures.
go on, do it. do it so we get rid of this addiction