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Amazon cuts 16k jobs

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#791

Post by snowwrestler »

rayiner wrote: post #780
chrysoprace wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be a time when software developers become obsolete, and I don't pretend to know the future, but if today's models are anything to go by then it won't happen any time soon. At the end of the day, there'll still be a need for highly skilled technical experts, whatever that job looks like.

> At the end of the day, there'll still be a need for highly skilled technical experts, whatever that job looks like. Why? There was a time when there was a need for highly skilled seamstresses. And we never developed the technology to do their jobs as well as they could. But people just learned to deal with mass produced clothes that didn’t fit perfectly because it was so much cheaper.

Not sure what the point is here because highly skilled seamstress is still a well-paying job, and all the mass-produced clothes are also still sewn by hand.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#792

Post by gedy »

LPisGood wrote: post #683
risyachka wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> AI will eat the "software professionals" you mean AI will eat everyone, because if software professionals will be automated - all other white collar jobs will be too via software. And then all resources will be poured in hardware and blue collar jobs will be automated too, at least those that have more value.

That’s the thing here. Software engineering is an intelligence-complete problem. If AI can solve it, then it can solve any sort of knowledge work like accounting, financial analysis, etc

You are right, but I think at the moment, a lot of people are confusing "software engineering" with "set up my react boilerplate with tailwind and unit tests", and AI just is way better for that sort of rote thing.

I've never felt comfortable with the devs who just want some Jira ticket with exactly what to do. That's basically what AI/LLMs can do pretty well.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#793

Post by LPisGood »

sfink wrote: post #703
LPisGood wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the thing here. Software engineering is an intelligence-complete problem. If AI can solve it, then it can solve any sort of knowledge work like accounting, financial analysis, etc

Only if by "solving it", you mean being able to write any program to do anything. Software engineering is a hubris-complete problem. Somehow, being able to do so much seems to make us all assume that everyone else is capable of so little. But just because we can write 1000 programs to do 1000 different things, and because AI can write 1000 programs to do 1000 different things, it doesn't mean that we can write the mi…

> Financial analysis is not easier than programming. You don't feed in numbers, turn a crank, and get out correct answers

It’s not, but if software engineering is solved then of course so is financial analysis, because a program could be written to do it. If the program is not good enough, then software engineering is not solved.

I think this what you were getting at with this part, but it’s not clear to me, because it seems like you were disagreeing with my thesis: “ because AI can write 1000 programs to do 1000 different things, it doesn't mean that we can write the million other programs that do a million other things”

I’m not sure if you’re saying that people weren’t using computers to solve problems before, but that’s pretty much everything they do. Some people were specifically trained to make computers solve problems, but if computers can solve X problem without a programmer, then both the computer programmer and the X problem solver are replaced.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#794

Post by nova22033 »

focusgroup0 wrote: post #37

>Amazon axes 16,000 American jobs as it ... relocates to a larger campus in India https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/10/amazon-to-invest-additiona...

Amazon's entire business model depends on importing cheap Chinese made goods so this isn't a real surprise.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#795

Post by FilosofumRex »

darth_avocado wrote: post #260
dmix wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon also employs 1.5 million people globally, 350k of which are in corporate. These 16k were corporate. Still sucks for everyone involved, I know a corporate sales guy who got laid off Microsoft and it disrupted his life pretty seriously. As Stalin says one's a tragedy, a millions a statistic.

Since the HN reaction to layoffs almost always is about blaming H1B, here’s a few more things the headline misses: 1. Cuts were global 2. Cuts in US also include H1B employees 3. 16000 roles are corporate roles, not just tech related, H1B program is not generally utilized for those roles 4. Expansion in India is not just tech. Amazon is a big retailer in India. Understandably if you’re seeing revenue growth in India,…

> 1. Cuts were global 2. Cuts in US also include H1B employees

Hell no, Amazon has been a top 10 filer of H1-B LCAs for decades. The only H1-Bs being laid off, if any, are the older ones (over 39) to be replaced with cheaper models https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS8LNhxJq9Q

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#796

Post by brikym »

coffeemug wrote: post #720
brikym wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to sound like a luddite I'm sure but I'm tried of these analogies using horses, tractors and so on. Labor involving muscles was replaced with tractors but people could just switch to using the other half of their body; The Brain. Now that a lot of the creative tasks and knowledge work is being replaced there isn't anywhere for those people to go. Maybe people with esoteric industry knowledge, vibe-coding sk…

I still don’t understand why people oppose that rather than enthusiastically desire it. The end state you’re describing is the culmination of the enlightenment project. Automating labor is the point! Then you can paint, or play chess, or eat amazing food, or do whatever you want. Work isn’t the end, it’s the means. Products and services is the end. If we can achieve the end via technology, who cares about the work?

That automation will be owned by a few and they're known for avoiding taxes not supporting something like a UBI. The masses a mostly likely to be kept busy watching propaganda on Tiktok not painting.

Food continues to go downhill the more agritech progresses and the planets population grows. Proteins are replaced by carbs with savoury flavouring, fats are replaced by thickeners etc. Eating good food like a good cut of steak requires out bidding other people which requires income.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#797

Post by SJC_Hacker »

jayers wrote: post #728
sfink wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if by "solving it", you mean being able to write any program to do anything. Software engineering is a hubris-complete problem. Somehow, being able to do so much seems to make us all assume that everyone else is capable of so little. But just because we can write 1000 programs to do 1000 different things, and because AI can write 1000 programs to do 1000 different things, it doesn't mean that we can write the mi…

This is the crux of it. The digital world doesn't produce value except when it eases the production of real goods. Software Development as a field is strange: it can only produce value when it is used to make production of real goods more efficient. We can use AI to cut out bureaucratic work, which then means that all that is left is real work: craftsmanship, relationship building, design, leadership. There are plent…

> Software Development as a field is strange: it can only produce value when it is used to make production of real goods more efficient. We can use AI to cut out bureaucratic work, which then means that all that is left is real work: craftsmanship, relationship building, design, leadership.

Thats a really odd take. Software is merely a way of ingesting data and producing information. And information often has intrinsic value. This can scale from simple things like minor annoyances of forgetting your umbrella, to avoiding deaths/millions of dollars in losses due to ships sinking in storms.

Now the long term value of software does approach zero, because it can usually be duplicated quite easily.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#798

Post by SJC_Hacker »

apsurd wrote: post #733
sfink wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if by "solving it", you mean being able to write any program to do anything. Software engineering is a hubris-complete problem. Somehow, being able to do so much seems to make us all assume that everyone else is capable of so little. But just because we can write 1000 programs to do 1000 different things, and because AI can write 1000 programs to do 1000 different things, it doesn't mean that we can write the mi…

I value your weird rant. Yes it did go on as a thought stream, but there's sense in there. I've been thinking a lot around a kind of smart-people paradox: very intellectual arguments all basically plotting a line toward some inevitable conclusion like super intelligence or consciousness. Everything is a raw compute problem. While at the same time all scientific progress gives us more and more evidence that reality is…

> While at the same time all scientific progress gives us more and more evidence that reality is non-computable, non linear.

What scientific problems are non-computable?

ANNs are designed to handle non-linearities BTW, thats the entire point of activation functions and multi layer networks

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#799

Post by ad8e »

Aurornis wrote: post #519
dzonga wrote: post #375

Insightful Comment from X - https://xcancel.com/PlumbNick/status/2016500347053773198?s=2... I was an L7, I led global AI enablement. I built systems executives depended on, moved wherever the company needed me and fixed problems that had been sitting untouched because no one else could untangle them. And I was still cut. Here’s the part we’re all supposed to politely ignore: in the U.S. right now, experience isn’t an…

That person's pinned message shows that he started his campaign for Congress almost 2 months ago. He says he was laid off today. He's been Tweeting non-stop daily and appears to be working hard on his campaign. I don't think you can separate his active run for Congress from this layoff. Making an actual run for Congress is a huge time commitment and I don't see how it would be compatible with being an L7 manager at A…

Your suspicion is right; it is 100% AI-generated. https://www.pangram.com/history/8b593dcc-6a7d-496f-8c80-a588...

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#800

Post by reaperducer »

api wrote: post #751
NicoJuicy wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's literally the current president

I think he might be the greatest person at failing up who has ever lived. It has to be some kind of savant-like skill. After this he’ll probably become the literal king of the world.

I think he might be the greatest person at failing up who has ever lived.

Went bankrupt six times and is still hailed by his followers as an economic genius. Few people can pull that off.

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