AI Replacing Employees: the Intent is Now Out in the Open

In January, quite a few articles popped up discussing how companies are going to replace their workers with AI. Corporate executives are now upfront about their intentions about replacing their employees. No more gentle talk about augmentation.

So, here are a couple of links so you can access and read the full articles themselves:

Zuckerberg Announces Plan to Automate Facebook Coding Jobs with AI

Goldman Sachs Starts Process of Replacing Bankers with AI

And here’s a real dilly:

Top AI Investor Says Goal is to Crash Human Wages

Yes, these are really cheery readings, especially the last one. The sections below will briefly summarize the essence of the article and maybe include some wonderful pithy quotes to illustrate the heartlessness of all of this.

AI Replacing Coders

It seems Zuckerberg started the discussion when he told Joe Rogan that 2025 was the year that he would focus on replacing mid-level engineers with AI.

“This, Zuckerberg argues, will actually “augment” workers.”

Frank Landymore, Futurism, “Zuckerberg Announces Plan to Automate Facebook Coding Jobs with AI”, 1/13/2025

He’s still trying to deploy the “augmentation” story to ease the pain of AI replacing employees. He’s not going to address the elephant in the room.

“Pressed about whether AI will eliminate jobs, Zuckerberg doesn’t offer a direct answer; he just goes into a long spiel about industrialization and how we’re not all farmers anymore.”

Frank Landymore, Futurism, “Zuckerberg Announces Plan to Automate Facebook Coding Jobs with AI”, 1/13/2025

Salesforce made the same sort of announcement back in December: they will not be hiring any software engineers in 2025.

Klarna Model: replacing customer service personnel

This guy totally embraces the AI replacement model. I believe he has let go 22% of his workforce and has bragged about AI doing the work of 700 customer service personnel.

Sweet!

AI is coming for bankers!

Next on the block are the bankers.

Actually, since 2013 or 2014 I have been anticipating ai replacing finance personnel, but I was kind of hoping it would not be until 2040s, not around 2025. This whole replacement activity has accelerated with the introduction of generative AI to the world.

“They frequently frame the experiments as efforts to make their employees’ lives easier. But it doesn’t take much reading between the lines that leaders are hopeful they’ll eventually be able to replace human staffers with AI,…”

Victor Tangermann, Futurism, “Goldman Sachs Starts Process of Replacing Bankers with AI”, 1/22/2025

One thing I didn’t catch until just now was way up on the upper left corner of the webpage, there was a statement “No More Pretense”.

Yep, their intent is out in the open.

JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are also on the bandwagon to have AI replace their employees.

One thing that puzzles me as a finance professional, aren’t they concerned about the security and the hallucination propensity? I’m a little surprised at the rush.

An investor is just lusting at the prospect of mass unemployment

Okay, he doesn’t really state it that way, but the idea of “crashing” salaries is offensive. When I read the article, I sense him salivating at the prospect of layoffs so that money can flow into his pocket.

“A world in which human wages crash from AI — logically, necessarily — is a world in which productivity growth goes through the roof, and prices for goods and services crash to near zero,” Andreessen wrote. “Consumer cornucopia. Everything you need and want for pennies.”

Frank Landymore, Futurism, “Top AI Investor Says Goal is to Crash Human Wages”, 1/27/2025

The author’s sentiment is expressed thusly:

“What a noble vision.”

Frank Landymore, Futurism, “Top AI Investor Says Goal is to Crash Human Wages”, 1/27/2025

I mean, this is really offensive.

“So fret not, lowly laborer: you may be destined for financial ruin, but paradise is right around the corner. Pinky promise.”

Frank Landymore, Futurism, “Top AI Investor Says Goal is to Crash Human Wages”, 1/27/2025

Larry Ellison of Oracle is salivating at the prospect of AI nirvana where we would be under a supersurveillance state and people would have to be on their best behavior.

What we can look forward to

What a glorious future we are facing. Massive unemployment coupled with undreamed of wealth never before seen in the history of the world. Instead of billionaires or even trillionaires we will probably have quadrillionaires.

No wonder they are rushing to bring us this glorious future.

Oh, I almost forgot. That image of the robot up above? That was created by Apple Intelligence. My device was just recently updated with iOS version 18.3 (or something like that). I played around with the “Playground” app. I need to do some more experiments before I start talking about what it can do.