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JOBS
AI Didn't Cut Your Job. A CEO Did.
The layoff was a choice. Someone made it – and no one has to answer for it.
Amazon tracksevery second inside its warehouses.
If you stop scanning for two hours – bathroom break, injury, anything – the system can fire you automatically with no manager involved. 10% of the workers at a Baltimore warehouse were fired that way every year.1
Now Amazon's internal documents say robots will let them avoid hiring hundreds of thousands of workers it would otherwise need by 2033.2
Nobody got a vote on this future. And right now – nobody has to answer for it.
600,000
Workers Amazon plans to avoid hiring by 2033 – choosing robots instead.
Source · NYT, October 21, 2025 · Wyoming population 577K, U.S. Census 20202
What's happening
Humans have always automated tasks. But we're now in a new era of automation.
First: automation we can see. Machines on the line, Waymos replacing taxis, robots in the warehouses. That wave of automation continues to accelerate. A faster one is moving in behind it.
Now: automation for white-collar jobs. The same frontier AI that powers chatbots now writes code, answers customers, and drafts the memo.
For four months running, companies have named AI as their top reason for cutting jobs:4
- 4,000 people at Block lost their jobs – 40% of its staff – the same day its stock jumped 25%. Its CEO said “the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion.”3
- 4,000 customer-service workers at Salesforce were replaced by AI. Its CEO said he needs “less heads.”9
- 8,000 people at Meta lost their jobs the same week it raised AI spending toward $135 billion.10
Soon: the two merge. The same companies are putting frontier AI inside robots that do physical work – machines that see, decide, and move on their own.
Amazon now runs its warehouses with more than 1 million robots, and it's testing human-shaped ones to do work people do today.8
This time is different.
Past machines did one task, over and over.
Frontier AI is built to handle many – it can write, plan, answer, and decide, then move to the next thing. Put it inside a robot and it gets hands too.
These companies aren't building tools to help you work – they're building systems to do the whole job.
A tool makes a worker more powerful. A replacement makes the worker unnecessary. None of this is weather – every layoff is a choice someone made.
Learning new tools is smart – workers have always done it. But if a machine can do the whole job, learning to use it won't save yours.
Block, February 2026: the stock jumped the same day it cut more than 4,000 jobs.
Source · CNN, February 26, 20263
Where are the rules?
When a factory closes, there's a US law that makes the company give workers 60 days' notice – time to find a new job or retrain. Workers fought for this rule and won. Today, when AI takes your job, the company that built the system answers to no one.
65% of Americans say AI companies should be liable for serious harm – Republicans (63%) and Democrats (67%) alike. So why no rules? Eleven tech companies spend about $226,000 a day lobbying Congress. They asked for rules – then paid to make sure none came.56
“AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs.”
It's bigger than your job
If a truck driver causes a crash, someone answers for it. If a doctor makes a mistake, someone answers for it. If AI costs you your job, no one does. Every other industry lives by rules – our lawmakers are handing them an exception.
And the AI companies aren't building a better chatbot. Their own mission statements say the goal is AI that does everything a human can do – starting with your job.
The rules that catch this today are the rules that keep AI accountable as it gets more powerful.
The bigger picture
Keep humans in control
What you can do
We believe AI should help people, not replace them. Pressure from American workers won laws requiring closing factories to give workers 60 days' notice – pressure can write rules for AI-related job loss too. Here's what we're asking for.
Questions people ask
Maybe – but that's a decision, not the weather. The companies building AI say the goal is doing the work humans do. But it's not the machine choosing to replace you – it's executives choosing. And right now, no one answers for it.
Frontier AI systems from OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Meta, and Google take thinking work first – writing, coding, research, customer support. Our youngest get hit hardest: entry-level jobs in AI-exposed fields fell 16% since late 2022, while older workers held steady (Stanford, 2026). Often the damage is hidden – companies just stop posting the first jobs young people need. Anthropic's own CEO warned AI could erase half of entry-level office jobs within five years.
We believe so – America has met shocks this size before. In 1944, Congress saw 16 million veterans coming home and passed the GI Bill before the war even ended – the plan came before the shock.
We've done big things before, but part of that means enough of us need to demand our lawmakers support commonsense rules for AI. Contact your representative.
More resources
These are independent resources – not from us. Each one is worth your time.
Brookings: Workers and AI – Research on which jobs AI affects most, and what worker protections could help.
MIT Work of the Future – MIT economists on building AI that helps workers instead of replacing them.
JobLoss.ai – A running tracker of job cuts companies have attributed to AI, built by the Alliance for Secure AI.
Sources14 references · tap to expand
Check everything – every number on this page comes from somewhere you can read.
- 1 ↩The Verge · Amazon auto-fires for productivity gaps · April 25, 2019
- 2 ↩The New York Times (leaked internal documents) · Amazon plan: avoid hiring 600,000 by 2033 · October 21, 2025
- 3 ↩CNN Business · Block layoffs; Dorsey memo; +25% stock · February 26, 2026
- 4 ↩Challenger, Gray & Christmas · AI tops job-cut reasons, 3 months · June 4, 2026
- 5 ↩AI Policy Institute / YouGov · 65% support AI company liability · February 2026
- 6 ↩Issue One / Fortune · $226K/day AI lobbying spend · April 23, 2026
- 7 ↩Axios · Amodei: half of entry-level jobs at risk · May 28, 2025
- 8 ↩Amazon / CNBC · 1M+ warehouse robots; humanoid (Digit) testing · July 2025
- 9 ↩CNBC · Salesforce cut ~4,000 support roles for AI · September 2, 2025
- 10 ↩Axios · Meta cut ~8,000 jobs amid AI buildout · April 23, 2026
- 11 ↩Dario Amodei, “The Urgency of Interpretability” · Amodei: we don’t understand how our own AI works · April 24, 2025
- 12 ↩CBS News, 60 Minutes · Pichai: AI is a “black box” we don’t fully understand · April 16, 2023
- 13 ↩CNBC (Musk at SXSW) · Musk: AI more dangerous than nuclear warheads · March 13, 2018
- 14 ↩Business Insider; Future of Life Institute · Altman: AI may “lead to the end of the world” · June 2015
Ready to demand commonsense rules for AI?
See what we're asking for →