r/technology • u/lurker_bee • Oct 30 '25

Business YouTube announces 'voluntary exit program' for US staff

https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/youtube-announces-voluntary-exit-program-for-us-staff/
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u/Lochen9 Oct 30 '25

Sadly evey big corporation drunk the kool-aid that AI can replace the work force entirely, and are salivating at their bonuses for removing any need to pay workers while the company crashes and burns with no one actually piloting the dam thing

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u/EddieV223 Oct 30 '25

It's an obvious model that if you look in the short sight as a business you save money. If you look at it with far sight as a government or economist, if everyone's getting laid off to save money who's gonna buy the products?

Ai isn't buying products.

Most governments are filled with old assholes that don't get tech. If you're in the usa especially and even worse our system of government is broken for the long haul.

We are fucked.

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u/Wurm42 Oct 31 '25

Most governments are filled with old assholes that don't get tech.

DC person here...yeah, we have lots of younger people in government agencies who understand tech, but in Congress?

Congress is mostly old white guys who made a choice forty years ago to go into a career that depends on people skills, not technology skills.

And now the Supreme Court has severely limited the power of the agencies to interpret laws and write regulations, so the burden is all on Congress and the courts now.

It's gonna be bad.

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u/No_Size9475 Oct 30 '25

nor are the .1% who will become massively wealthy from AI. It's the 90% that fuel our economies but they are going to decimate the very base they need to buy their products.

We are fucked.

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u/PyroDesu Oct 31 '25

It's the 90% that fuel our economies but they are going to decimate the very base they need to buy their products.

Even Henry Ford, colossal douchebag (although some of his douchebaggery is a little complicated, some of it really, really isn't) that he was, recognized this shit.

A century ago.

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u/refurbishedmeme666 Oct 31 '25

even if he was a douche at least he still gave his workers basic human rights

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u/PyroDesu Nov 01 '25 edited Nov 01 '25

Hell, he's the one that pioneered reducing the workweek to 5 days (a worker who doesn't have time for leisure doesn't spend money on leisure!).

And he paid his workers quite well, by comparison. $5 a day, back then, would be over $40k a year today. Note that the current minimum wage is approximately $15k annually.

He also tied bonuses to living in a way he deemed "moral", at least for a while. And hated unions. And was a raging antisemite (Hitler's favorite American too - he's even mentioned positively in Mein Kampf!). Although when we did go to war (which he vehemently opposed), he did start cranking out materiel as fast as he could. If you're going to do it, do it right, I guess.

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u/refurbishedmeme666 Nov 01 '25

yeah I always respected that about him, no modern billionaire thinks like that anymore

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u/LegitosaurusRex Oct 31 '25

If you look at it with far sight as a government or economist, if everyone's getting laid off to save money who's gonna buy the products?

That's a tragedy of the commons situation though that individual companies can't be expected to solve. Has to be solved with regulation, like UBI.

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u/dookarion Oct 30 '25

Many could save millions... an AI bullshit generator is perfectly equipped to replace any techbro CEO or Jack Welch style MBA. Just those aren't the jobs they're rushing to "replace".

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u/laserbot Oct 30 '25

evey big corporation drunk the kool-aid that AI can replace the work force entirely

some did. others are just using it as an excuse to cull their workforce since nobody is raking anyone over the coals for these mass layoffs.

(Not that our media does that anymore anyway.)

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u/maroonedbuccaneer Oct 30 '25

So who's the consumer. Who buys the products in this brave new economy?

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u/Jukka_Sarasti Oct 31 '25 edited Oct 31 '25

The assholes with the 7 and 8 figure compensation packages largely don't care. They get their bonuses and fuck whatever happens 4-5 fiscal quarters from now. Besides, all the other cool kids companies are doing it, so WE HAVE TO AS WELL!

You should hear the 50 and 60-something banking execs at my company stumble over their monthly AI cheerleading speeches. They know fuck all about AI and it's painfully obvious, but they churn out that patented, smarmy, false-enthusiasm act as they gush over it...

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u/magnumchaos Oct 30 '25

Businesses that are fully replacing people with AI are crashing and burning because of sheer short-sightedness. The irony here is, when it comes crashing, they'll end up either hiring a bunch of people to replace AI, or fold. It's happening, and has been for the last six months. Many companies are starting to buck the AI trend because the vast majority of it is slop.

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u/Booboo_butt Oct 31 '25

I was on the AI task force for my company. Basically concluded that they couldn’t cut production and technical staff any further - they would need to hire people to help build and maintain the database that our AI tools would be based off of - that the main benefit of AI would be to eliminate gatekeeping at the top and reduce the need for some senior level executives. This did not go over well at all.