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How do you know that these layoffs are the result of AI, rather than AI being a convenient place to lay the blame? I've seen a number of companies go "AI first" and stop hiring or have layoffs (Salesforce comes to mind) but I suspect they would have been in a slump without AI entirely.

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> How do you know that these layoffs are the result of AI, rather than AI being a convenient place to lay the blame?

Both of those can be true, because companies are placing bets that AI will replace a lot of human work (by layoffs and reduced hiring), while also using it in the short term as a reason to cut short term costs.

You are indeed correct according to my opinion. Salesforce went too deep into BlockChain and BigData and probably never recovered from the sunk costs. But to stay relevant they again need to risk another bet but also need to conserve(death by a thousand cuts and all) so they layoff while jumping on AI bandwagon. And how fortunate it is that LLM sellers tout productivity gain(zero backing data but hey) as a benefit, so it also falsely support their failure as a success.

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