https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/06/the-running-list-major-tech-layoffs-in-2026-where-employers-cited-ai/
> to fund AI infrastructure investment
> 35% fewer managers
> vast majority of those we laid off last week were measurers
This is very different than, "now a bot can do their job."
> cut of about 4,000 customer-support roles
That, on the other hand, is probably AI replacing employees. The question is whether that replacement meets customer needs or just frustrates them because it sucks. Cory Doctorow is always saying that AI doesn't need to be good enough to replace you, it needs to be good enough that management thinks it can replace you, even if it does a horrible job at what used to be your job.
> just frustrates them because it sucks
That's what is in my feeds BUT the intensity/quantity of it needs to be discounted because the media, bloggers, etc are playing to the growing anti-ai movement.
> discounted
Indeed. So many people say they hate AI writing and such, but when blind tested, we often *prefer* AI writing now.
And it makes sense that we would. AI writing is aimed at replicating the dominant practice. So it tends to have fewer new ideas, but we tend to like it better.
The people who say they hate AI writing are probably not detecting 80% of the AI writing they encounter and just keying in on the 20% that is obviously awful (though there's less and less of that).
Saying that I hate THAT AI is writing is, I think, a perfectly valid and coherent position. Saying that I hate AI writing is mostly BS because I mostly lack the tools to detect it.
Charles C Mann, one of my favorite non-fiction writers, recently posted that for kicks he took a text of his and put it into an AI detector. It rated it 100% AI generated.