Technology

At least in my area they've decided to walk back the walk back.

They went from "Self checkouts are now only for ten items or less" to "Self checkouts are permanently closed" and now they've gone to "Self checkouts can be used for any number of items and also we added four more".

The power to fire lies within the leadership themselves though...
Oh, you mean an actual fire?! I like your way of thinking.

You know they’re just going to get bonuses and promotions.

You son of a bitch, I'm in!

Nah, I came here to make this comment and you already have it well in hand. It's not really any different other than the marketing spin, though. Companies have always had bad code and hired specialists to sort it out. And over half of the specialists suck, too, and so the merry-go-round spins.

Or more generalized: management going all-in with their decisions, forgetting there is a sweet spot for everything, and then backtracking losing employee time and company money. Sometimes these cause huge backlash, like Wells Fargo pushy sales practices, or great loses, like Meta with Metaverse

It's technically closer to Schrodinger's truth. It goes both ways depending on "when" you look at it. Publicly traded companies are more or less expected to adopt AI as it is the next "cheap" labor... so long as it is the cheapest of any option. See the very related: slave labor and it's variants, child labor, and "outsourcing" to "less developed" countries.

The problem is they need to dance between this experimental technology and ... having a publicly "functional" company. The line demands you cut costs but also increase service. So basically overcorrection hell. Mass hirings into mass firings. Every quarter / two quarters depending on the company... until one of two things becomes true: ai works or ai no longer is the cheapest solution. I imagine that will rubberband for quite some time. (saas shit like oracle etc)

In short - I'd not expect this to be more than a brief reprieve from a rapidly drying well. Take advantage of it for now - but I'd recommend not expecting it to remain.

It's true, although the smart companies aren't laying off workers in the first place, because they're treating AI as a tool to enhance their productivity rather than a tool to replace them.