tHe often spoke of the threat of artificial intelligence to his work, and suddenly became very realistic and shocking for Jane, who asked her to use a pseudonym for privacy reasons when her HR role was automated and fired in January.
She spent two years at the company, managing her benefits and was on track for promotion. She realized that her boss was building an AI infrastructure, but she didn't believe that her position, which paid around $70,000 a year, would be affected.
“I spent so much time and was really good at high-level stuff, so I thought he would invest in me,” said the 45-year-old Bay Area resident. Independence About her former employer. “Then as soon as he had a way to automate it, he did it. He let me go.”
What's worse, the current economic situation has made it more difficult to find employment. In February, the AI System conducted one of the telephone interviews.
“It was like doing an interview with automated voicemail,” she said, adding that the “robot” asked questions about themselves and answered them with general answers.
After a few months of unemployed, Jane gained government status in April and launched a new gig for sale a few weeks ago.
“What's going on is that there's a huge white collar slowdown,” Jane said. “I think my work is gone.”
Workers across the country are tackling the same problem. This is because technology CEOs are warning Bloodbath, a potential job market, over the next few years.
in axios In an interview last month, Dario Amodei, CEO of leading artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, predicted that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and increase unemployment to 10-20% within the next five years.
The public “don't know that this is going to happen,” he told the outlet. “It sounds crazy, and people don't believe it.”
Perhaps the other sectors aren't hit harder than high-tech. Internet forums are flooded with workers wondering if they've been laid off or when they're when.
Software engineer Sean K (his last name is K) shared his experience with Substack, where AI was laid off when he took over the company.
In March 2024, 42-year-old K was a full-stack engineer at Framevr.io. His boss encouraged employees to use ChatGpt, and team productivity skyrocketed.
A month later he was fired. He was in the industry for 21 years, earning $150,000.
“We redirected our company towards AI, added AI capabilities throughout the software, and tried to leverage AI for our customers, and then…layed off right after that kind of restructuring and strategy,” he said. Independence.
With two mortgages to cover, he began using DoorDash to make deliveries around his home in central New York. After over a year and nearly 800 applications, he finally got into contract position earlier this month.
“Like everything I can think of, I've tried a lot. I've lowered my standard over the last year of everything I'm applying for and everything I want to think,” he said. “At some point, you're going to be in a situation where you literally need cash to eat and pay your bills.”
K believes that AI will make some tech jobs outdated, but workers still have a place.
“AI is a better programmer than me, and that doesn't mean I don't think I'm worthy anymore,” he said. “I think that means I can do 100 times more than I did before and solve difficult problems that I've never tried before.”
His articles have received so much attention that he wants people to notice the changes that are coming into the industry.
“I'm really sure anyone who's been working on a computer all day has finished, and it's only a matter of time,” K said.
Brian Ream, a 46-year-old high school and college tutor in Michigan, ran a medical transition project until AI dwindled demand. The business, which only generated thousands of dollars a year, provided English translations to Portuguese medical journals. He spent time in Brazil and learned the language before starting his business in 2014, but hasn't ordered in over a year.
He knows that most of his previous customers currently use Chat GPT and is worried about what it means.
“When translating articles in medical journals, this can have an unintended effect,” Ream said, noting that some of his previous clients may have translated articles with incorrect medical information.
Still, he acknowledges that the technology may be useful and hopes that other educators will incorporate it into their lessons.
“I hope that teachers are more connected to the tool and that they could teach students what it can and can't do, so they don't try to use it for things they can't,” Ream said.
“The reality is that students use this to write an entire essay and they don't know that the tool can't do that because they don't learn how to do it themselves.”
He wants to prepare for the next generation, even if it destroys his own business, as more employers need to use AI on his workers.
“We can't make sure this doesn't happen,” Ream said.
