I don’t think a lot of us employees will be happy to admit that AI is turning out to be a legitimate productivity aid that is allowing individuals to accomplish more work per person.

We’d rather sit here and stew about companies “blaming AI for layoffs” but I imagine that is only sometimes the case.

A somewhat related tangent: I have had the thought that many parts of the Japanese system of hiring for life might actually be really appropriate for the AI age. That system seems to result in a lot of companies finding ways to reshuffle employees into making some kind of product that has market value rather than the Western reaction that that seems to favor downsizing and focusing the company on a smaller set of markets in the name of ruthless efficiency. This seems to result in many Japanese firms making a wide breadth of interesting products at very high quality levels.

If your company is profitable because AI is increasing efficiency (allegedly, of course), why layoff 7% of your employees when you could instead assign them to make something new or complementary to your current product line? Western companies seem to refuse to do that out of a sense of focus and efficiency, but maybe giving that strategy a go more frequently would result in unrealized opportunities.

You can crap on those investors. The answer then is to never take their money. But without money, the job probably wasn’t created in the first place. So the result is the same.

By the way, ever work alongside a really crappy non-executive and wonder how on earth they’re keeping their job? I sure have.