Technological Unemployment News & Discussions

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[firestar464]

AI may be killing entry-level jobs, Bank of Canada governor warns

https://globalnews.ca/news/11654278/ai- ... of-canada/

[caltrek]

Ben Horowitz Says Fears of an AI-Fueled Job Apocalypse are Based on a Flawed Assumption
February 4, 2026

Introduction:

(Business Insider)

• Ben Horowitz pushed back on fears that AI will create mass unemployment.

• He said automation has always erased jobs while creating new work we couldn't foresee.

• Horowitz pointed to agriculture, where most jobs vanished yet new kinds of work emerged over time.

Ben Horowitz doesn't buy the idea that artificial intelligence is about to wipe out work as we know it.

The cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz says many of the loudest warnings about AI-driven mass unemployment rest on a flawed premise: that the future of work is predictable.

History, he said, suggests the opposite.

Read more here: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/b ... 642&ei=97

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

Microsoft AI boss issues 18-month warning to all white-collar workers

Mustafa Suleyman says most office tasks could be 'fully automated' by artificial intelligence in less than two years

16 Feb 2026

Millions of US offices face an uncertain future, according to Microsoft's AI boss, who has forecast that most white-collar tasks could be "fully automated" by artificial intelligence within the next 12 to 18 months.

Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft's CEO of AI, said he believes the technology is advancing toward "human‐level performance on most, if not all, professional tasks."

In an interview with the Financial Times, he added: "White‐collar work, where you're sitting down at a computer - either being, you know, a lawyer, or an accountant, or a project manager, or a marketing person - most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months."

https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/ ... 18-1684833

[firestar464]

Researchers identify mental health effects of AI-driven job insecurity

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02- ... riven.html

[firestar464]

The bogus four-day workweek that AI supposedly ‘frees up’

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... y-workweek

No shit, things aren't going to magically turn out well for people unless people get together to force change.

[wjfox]

Jack Dorsey's Block cuts thousands of jobs as it embraces AI

8 hours ago

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey says his technology firm Block is laying off almost half its workforce because artificial intelligence (AI) "fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company."

"Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes," he wrote in a letter to shareholders, external.

The layoffs will mean headcount at the company - which owns Square, CashApp and Tidal - will fall to less than 6,000 from 10,000.

Block has seen several rounds of layoffs since 2024 but this is the first time it has cited AI as the reason for redundancies and marks the latest in a series of major job cuts in the tech industry.

At the end of January Amazon laid off 16,000 employees, having already cut 14,000 roles a few months earlier.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq570d12y9do

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

One thing that I don't understand about all of this talk that computers and robots are going to take everybody's jobs. That is the notion that they will transform the work force as opposed to totally displacing said workforce. I mean we keep reading these headlines about what jobs will be taken away, yet these same media sources often feature stories about the construction of data centers. Now, how do you construct data centers without employing construction workers?

I know advances are being made in the construction industry but there still seems to be a need for human construction workers.

Accompanying many articles concerning construction of data centers are discussions concerning the inadequacy of current infrastructure to accommodate such centers. Again, how do you provide the new infrastructure without employing human construction workers?

There is also the issue of training AI on how to use these data centers. As I understand it, such training is a very labor-intensive process.

I think a truly balanced approach would look at all of the pluses and minuses. That is to say the jobs that are being taken away alongside the jobs that are being created.

It seems that there can be no disputing that AI and robots are transforming the workforce. Yet, transforming the workforce and totaling replacing the workforce are two different things. It seems like a lot of pundits keep missing that point.

[wjfox]

Tech industry lays off nearly 80,000 employees in the first quarter of 2026 — almost 50% of affected positions cut due to AI

By Jowi Morales
published 6 hours ago

78,557 workers in the tech industry have reportedly been laid off from January 1 to April 2026, with more than 76% of the affected positions located in the U.S. Nikkei Asia reports that 37,638 of these cuts, or 47.9%, have been attributed to the reduced need for human workers because of AI and workflow automation. Despite that, Cognizant Chief AI Officer Babak Hodjat says that it will still take more than a year before we completely see the impact of modern AI technologies on the workforce.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-indus ... -due-to-ai

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

Seriously, wage slavery sucks. having the basics shouldn't depend on working until you die. That is the mindset the anti-a.i people are promoting out of fear of either the rich mans greed never allowing the system to develop or fear of change.

No one should ever go without with such tech. A billion bots would make this a reality. Human labor shouldn't be necesssury anymore in order to provide food, clothing and all of our needs.

A star trek future is very possible.

The first people I'd replace and move onto the allotment would be the field and meat plant workers. They work hard and they deserve to live a careless life that is provided for...All while humanoid bots do their former jobs.

Also as for the rich mans greed never allowing it! Well, that will probably mean the complete extiction of them as they're hanged and killed worldwide for attempting to f*ck over billions of human workers without a fair and just replacement. I don't think they're that dumb. They're either going to build this system that provides for us or we're going to end them.

[caltrek]

California’s Tom Steyer Proposes Jobs Guarantee for Workers Displaced by AI
By Julia Conley
May 8, 2026

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) In a first for a statewide candidate, California gubernatorial contender Tom Steyer on Friday proposed the creation of a wealth fund that would be paid into by artificial intelligence companies, with the money being used to fund jobs in key sectors of the economy.

The billionaire hedge fund founder-turned-environmental advocate, who has come out in support of a proposed tax on billioionaires’ wealth and a single-payer healthcare system for the state and has described himself as a “class traitor,” told Wired about his proposal to use a “token tax” to fund what he called the Golden State Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Big Tech companies would be taxed “a fraction of a cent for every unit of data processed” for AI uses, and some of the money directed to the fund through the taxation plan would be earmarked for jobs for people who lost employment due to the expansion of AI.

Jobs in healthcare, housing construction, and modernizing the state’s energy infrastructure would be prioritized in the fund.

Steyer told Wired the plan would make California “the first major economy in the world” to guarantee jobs to people who have been displaced by AI.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/tom-steyer-jobs

caltrek’s comment: As long as there are unmet social needs, there ought to be a way to finance employment to meet those needs.

[weatheriscool]

California’s Tom Steyer Proposes Jobs Guarantee for Workers Displaced by AI
By Julia Conley
May 8, 2026

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) In a first for a statewide candidate, California gubernatorial contender Tom Steyer on Friday proposed the creation of a wealth fund that would be paid into by artificial intelligence companies, with the money being used to fund jobs in key sectors of the economy.

The billionaire hedge fund founder-turned-environmental advocate, who has come out in support of a proposed tax on billioionaires’ wealth and a single-payer healthcare system for the state and has described himself as a “class traitor,” told Wired about his proposal to use a “token tax” to fund what he called the Golden State Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Big Tech companies would be taxed “a fraction of a cent for every unit of data processed” for AI uses, and some of the money directed to the fund through the taxation plan would be earmarked for jobs for people who lost employment due to the expansion of AI.

Jobs in healthcare, housing construction, and modernizing the state’s energy infrastructure would be prioritized in the fund.

Steyer told Wired the plan would make California “the first major economy in the world” to guarantee jobs to people who have been displaced by AI.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/tom-steyer-jobs

caltrek’s comment: As long as there are unmet social needs, there ought to be a way to finance employment to meet those needs.

Basic income for all