Ask HN: Have you been fired because of AI?
Wanted to gather some stories about people who were fired because of AI. Not a generic "reorg", what they say in the press release, but honestly, because of AI. Proves? Yes, but not the way you are thinking. My prior job was for a group within a large company who were early into going "All in" on AI. They insisted that we move our products towards AI, that everyone use AI for all the things, etc. It did not go well. At all. All the management above us got fired. I've never before seen an entire executive team all fired at the same time. Then they fired us, too. The handful people who were left went back to their pre-AI product strategies, recovered, and are running just fine now. What were the primary factors? Costs, personnel tracking, hallucinations, speed of delivery, or other? Do you think they will be implementing AI again anytime soon? haha. In my friend’s company they stopped all hiring. And ask everybody to use AI as much as possible. Maybe this is not “firing” but definitely no hiring. There are some stories here
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/s/ai-killed-my-job Love this because I call BS on most "We've let go 1,000 employees due to AI". For example, I just saw Pinterest say they let go of a large part of their workforce because of AI, but in reality, their new CEO has BUTCHERED the app. It's practically unusable. More and more companies seem to be screwing up, and instead of saying "we screwed up," it's a lot better to say "we've replaced these people with AI!" You can create Pinterest-like images on the fly now with AI. IMO, the end is inevitable for similar companies. Yes, i was fired from my role last week. We were buliding B2B SaaS in analytics space.
Though not by AI, it was due to the market conditions created by AI.
Customers are not willing to spend money on tools without proper AI story. Was there any chance for your company to implement AI and to make more sales/ keep your job? I know some friends who were put on the RIF list for being critical of AI strategy in a division within a large company, whose CEO is talking about intelligent minds and diffusion. Yes, I've heard about that. Any personal stories are very much appreciated. No, but every day I have to listen to my insufferable manager tell us we have to use whatever AI tool is trending on X. If I could quote this stupid industry I would. Do you mean fired or let go / made redundant? Fired or let go. I understand that many positions have duplicate people in backup roles, so some will be redundant.