{"id":9263,"date":"2026-03-08T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/machine-learning-engineer-safe-ai-layoffs\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T16:00:00","slug":"machine-learning-engineer-safe-ai-layoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/machine-learning-engineer-safe-ai-layoffs\/","title":{"rendered":"A Machine Learning Engineer Thought He Was Safe From AI Layoffs. Then He Got Some Depressing News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While the exact impact of AI on the job market remains hazy at best, ongoing fears that an AI-triggered job apocalypse<\/a> is nigh are coming to a boiling point.<\/p>\n

Last week, Twitter cofounder and Block (formerly Square) CEO Jack Dorsey announced that he was firing 4,000 employees<\/a> at his fintech company, informing investors that \u201cintelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA significantly smaller team, using the tools we\u2019re building, can do more and do it better,\u201d he added, asserting that the \u201cmajority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dorsey\u2019s missives sent shivers down the spines of already on-edge investors<\/a>. That\u2019s despite critics continuing to question<\/a> claims like Dorsey\u2019s, arguing that AI simply isn\u2019t capable of fulfilling human jobs and that AI is simply being used as an excuse to enact brutal layoffs. <\/p>\n

Regardless of Dorsey\u2019s real intentions, his latest decision to sack half of his company hit workers hard. That\u2019s despite early warning signs, as one former Block machine learning engineer told Business Insider<\/em><\/a>, that their tasks were slowly but surely being made redundant by the tech.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point you look around and say, \u2018Gosh, I\u2019m not doing that much of the work anymore, am I?’\u201d the worker, identified only as Kenji, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt certainly dawned on me that I could be in line for redundancy,\u201d he added. \u201cI just didn\u2019t think I was quite there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Kenji wasn\u2019t shocked by being let go. For one, he\u2019d been tasked with building systems to detect fraud at the company automatically, slowly waning the need for human intervention over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was the first 30 seconds of holy sh*t,\u201d he told BI<\/em>. \u201cBut then, as I read the whole thing, I was like, \u2018Yeah, I get it.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Kenji\u2019s experience is symptomatic of a broader trend playing out in the tech industry. Tech giants have carried out rounds and rounds of mass layoffs while simultaneously pouring untold sums of money into AI, clearly signaling their priorities.<\/p>\n

Just earlier this week, Bloomberg<\/em> reported<\/a> that Oracle was planning to cut thousands of jobs as it navigated a cash crunch triggered by its efforts to build out AI data centers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a depressing reality, particularly for those at Block, who were explicitly instructed by Dorsey<\/a> to make use of AI \u2014 or else. In some ways, workers were essentially encouraged to dig their own graves, Kenji argued.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the last year that we were strongly encouraged to use all these AI tools, we were laying the foundations for our own replacement,\u201d he told BI<\/em>. \u201cIf you show the tool how to do a task once or twice, it can kind of take it from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, plenty of pressing questions remain over the viability of AI and whether the tech can indeed fulfil the tasks that CEOs are hoping to automate. Some continue to argue that tech companies are simply addressing overhiring during the pandemic and making it seem like AI is actively replacing jobs.<\/p>\n

Dorsey\u2019s claims that AI had driven him to lay off almost half of his staff drew plenty of skepticism among former employees.<\/p>\n

In an essay published by the\u00a0New York Times<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0former Square head of communications Aaron Zamost argued that \u201cnot even Block itself\u201d knows whether AI is replacing work or whether the company\u2019s announcement is \u201cjust a convenient and flashy new cover for typical corporate downsizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Block employee Jason Karsh also argued that \u201cthis isn\u2019t an AI story\u201d in an early March tweet<\/a>, accusing Dorsey of masking \u201corganizational bloat\u201d with a narrative about AI.<\/p>\n

Where the persistent layoffs in the tech industry will lead in the long run remains anything but clear. Besides ongoing fears over AI automation, the US economy is actively losing thousands of jobs<\/a> per month, according to the latest figures by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in an ongoing downturn that rattled markets this week.<\/p>\n

While how much AI is contributing to this trend will continue to be hotly debated, it won\u2019t get any easier for those who helped lay the foundations for their own replacements.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I land a job tomorrow, I have zero confidence that it, too, couldn\u2019t be automated away in a couple years,\u201d Kenji told BI<\/em>.<\/p>\n

More on Block:<\/strong> Jack Dorsey Isn\u2019t Telling the Real Story About Block\u2019s AI Layoffs, Insider Says<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The post A Machine Learning Engineer Thought He Was Safe From AI Layoffs. Then He Got Some Depressing News<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While the exact impact of AI on the job market remains hazy at best, ongoing fears that an AI-triggered job apocalypse is nigh are coming to a boiling point. Last…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,3841],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-ethics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}