My company is in there somewhere, however the layoffs weren’t that big and seemed well targeted. Especially the number of middle managers
And were spending way too much on ai. No guardrails. No limits. Reviewed partly on how high your ai spend is
I’m definitely worried, since I don’t spend enough
AI is not doing the jobs; the remaining employees are.
No they aren’t they are in squeleton crew mode. Working at lax capacity with minimal staff.
Nope. AI is not replacing jobs. That’s their excuse for cutting jobs to finance these data centers hoping this investment will payoff eventually and they’re in a position to capitalize on it. Throwing good money after bad, as the tech is just not ready for this, and does not appear to be getting any better
In fact, it seems to be getting worse along a number of axes.
It’s not replacing jobs, it’s being used as a scapegoat.
You could probably fire a lot of Meta and not lose any real productivity. Just look at how’s much resources they allocated to VR and stalker glasses?
The truth is these companies spent covid playing Pokémon card collector with devs and now they’re spending hundreds of billions trying to capitalize on AI, so they need that cash flow black to pay for loans.
But on the other side of the same stick, you’ve got employees who you can now whip harder and say “look, we can make flappy bird with an AI model, do your deep work using 100 ai agents instead of thinking”
Also the updates to their existing software getting increasingly buggy and sloppy.
On that note, I had latest Claude Opus xhigh write me some code.
If a user passed an empty string to the
user_idfield it would give them access to everyone’s data. How that worked was a check like “if user_id: # add user id to query”. Empty strings are falsy in Python, so empty user id retrieves all data.A function later on was filtering these results out coincidentally, but not specifically. So if this shipped, in a month when someone updated the code, we’d be allowing an empty login form to access all user data.
This is the slop getting shipped by AI code assistants. This is why I am rewriting the whole project manually.
It could also suggests your codebase doesn’t have solid patterns
This was pretty close to a green field project.
This was one of the very first functions written after the db models were created.
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The fact that the same tech companies that fire people en masse are balls deep into the AI ouroboros can‘t be a coincidence. It‘s essentially a cruel and stupidly risky PR campaign for their shitty product.
It’s the greed. I’m so glad the comments are full of people who are clued in.
So really the headline should read, “A placid and compliant press repeats ai fictions to appease their corporate sponsors. While big tech downsizes to cover their failure.”.
That’s like half of Ed Zitron’s output, although he puts more detail into identifying the specific placid and compliant reporters.
Microsoft: Windows is falling apart at the seams, GitHub is forcing people off the platform due to unreliability
Meta: millions of people are abandoning the Facebook platform, VR didn’t pan out
But yeah it’s AI to blame, not the last stage of the well-articulated 4-step cycle of enshittification.
I knew VR would never pan out.
It needs expensive special equipment in the form of a headset that has no other use.
You need expensive powerful graphics hardware for good quality.
You need more special equipment if you wear glasses. Prescription lenses just for the goggles that are not used anywhere else.
It causes headaches, migraines and dizziness.
You need wide open space to utilize it.
I bought and returned a headset at the Microsoft store and am so glad I got that money back.
VR did not take off, but for wildly different reasons than what you state.
A steam deck or a games console also need expensive special equipment (in form of the console) that has no other use. Still they are thriving.
They also need expensive powerful graphics hardware for good quality. (Also, standalone VR totally exists and is pretty good nowadays, to the point where I don’t see much of a reason to pair my headset to my PC, and I am still rocking a Quest 2. Considering you are quoting “a headset at the Microsoft store”, I venture to guess that you haven’t tried VR in over half a decade.)
You don’t need special equipment if you wear glasses for most headsets, you just wear your glasses inside the VR headset. Source: I have been doing that for years. Glasses compatible VR headsets are a thing and quite common.
VR doesn’t cause migraines, migraines are something different. They mainly cause tension headaches and motion sickness. Headsets with better balance (e.g. ones that move the battery to the back of the head or ones that are lighter) reduce tension headaches a lot, and motion sickness differs between people and with practice.
The wide open space is the only actual problem you identified, but also there, VR also works in sitting or stationary standing positions. Full roomscale VR is only required by rather few VR games or apps.
The real issues are:
- VR doesn’t have advantages for working. Like, none at all. Meta focussed a lot on working in VR, and that just doesn’t work. No advantage means no reason to do it.
- VR works for games, but the inability to develop cross-platform between VR and other platforms means that it’s almost completely restricted to VR-exclusives. There are a few non-VR-exclusives with a VR mode, but they usually don’t actually take advantage of VR, since they have to work on a flat screen too. This means, not a lot of games and the ones that exist are super low budget.
- Local multiplayer is very difficult for VR. If I want to do local multiplayer on a flat screen console or PC, I need another controller and a place for the second person to sit. For VR I need to buy a second console (headset) and need more floor space. VR multiplayer in the same room often leads to people hitting each other, so to play together it’s best to separate between rooms.
- Gaming is often used as a relaxing, chill experience. That doesn’t really work in VR, since VR games require you to move. You usually can’t just chill on the couch while playing VR.
- VR software and UX is still in its infancy. Compare that to flat screen games, which took about 20-30 years to actually become really good in therms of UX and gameplay. VR hasn’t had enough time yet to get there, but it’s also not something that can just be forced with more money.
Clearly my user story about my experience is completely invalid as a factor. Good to know.
Edit: you guys are really insufferable.
I’m not alone about motion sickness, which is dubbed cyber sickness with vr headsets apparently. >50% experience this, with >20% having severe reactions. This is a small study but it’s not the only one with similar results and there are no large scale studies disproving this that I could find, but maybe you can if you want to be right and put in the effort! I spent about 50 hours in total using VR headsets and I can confirm almost every session had a reaction for me, and a couple of times I had to stop from JUST this. My ex girlfriend tried for a bit and she also had it worse. A very small scale study at northeastern says women makes claims that women have a higher rate for this as well, but you can do your own research.
It’s widely known that you need custom prescription lenses if you are nearsighted because most modern VR headsets are unable to match common prescriptions with the focus options available. These headsets are designed to make things appear far away in general, so if you need glasses to see at a distance you’ll need special lenses just for the headset you buy - these are not interchangeable between models from various manufacturers today. Many people like myself have astigmatism, so a simple lens like -2.00 will not just do the job, these need to be the same prescription as you would need for day to day glasses. These lenses are not functional for day to day use cases like driving, using a computer outside of VR, etc. https://www.reddit.com/r/MetaQuestVR/comments/1h3bffc/do_i_need_prescription_lenses/
I know some of you really love VR and think it’s the future. That’s great! Enjoy it! have a blast! pick up the frame on launch day! No one is going to stop you. For many of us, it’s not an option and we’re not interested because we’ve tired it ourselves multiple times with multiple headsets and games.
That’s not a user story. That’s a personal anecdote from over 5 years ago. The complaints you mentioned are not valid to the current hardware that is available to consumers right now. VR headsets are excellent for physical fitness. I use a VR headset for cardio and boxing games. I get a great workout and I don’t get bored. Qualcomm’s recent SOCs negate the need for a connected computer.
VR is also a game changer for racing games and flight simulators (all of which are seated and stationary and require no additional room).
You mean your story of buying an unnamed “Microsoft” headset at least 5 years ago and using it so little that you could still return it? Ok. Yeah. That kind of “user story” is pretty insubstantial.
What user story?
You just described everything wrong with cars when they first came out. Large, uncomfortable, slow, needed expensive infrastructure/hardware. And look at cars now. Size hasn’t improved, but everything else has (well, the infrastructure is in place now), and you can’t get away from them.
Im saving up for a Steam Frame. Even if it just operates as a screen for my Steam Deck, that’s enough for me. Add in some freestanding VR, and maybe a new computer that can handle VR in the future, and I’m as happy as can be.
I’m not saying your opinion is wrong, just not universal, and we are still very early on in the VR/AR market.
Cars didn’t give people migraines or require custom lenses to use.
They also get you from point A to point B and without them you had no other choices beyond a horse, bicycle or paying someone else to produce something.
VR gives you a headset you have to wear that is uncomfortable and the end result is that you see the game you’re playing on the screen in front of you.
We already have screens in front of us that we play games on.
This is more like a motorcycle in America. Nobody uses them really, so you have to really commit to it to get use out of it. There’s loads of downsides and the upsides is that it can be fun from time to time. They can technically take you from point a to point b, but odds are you’re gonna want something with walls and a roof when weather sucks or when you need to do something serious like haul some supplies for a home project. Just like how certain things are just better with a mouse and keyboard or with a controller.
Your car analogy fits computers or smartphones better. We already have those, so an accessory computing thing is a frivolous add on for most anything you’d want to do with it, but it can be fun if it works for you. Sure, in Asian countries bikes are cheaper and more common so everything is more suitable to them, but I suspect they will never catch on here to the same degree…. Like VR.
Early cars were worse than trains and horses. It took a lot of effort to make them useful, and then to make them ubiquitous.
Cars absolutely require special lenses for some people to operate and exhaust fumes will give you headaches and worse
Ah yes, all those glasses people made for each and every car they ever drove! That was so inconvenient!
And the deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning just by driving early cars! OH MY GOD SO MANY DEAD. BILLIONS! more than have ever died before!
The way you talk about VR is the way Trump talks about windfarms.
Windfarms produce clean energy with minimal environmental impact and cost.
VR headsets… don’t quite have the same kind of impact. You can easily spend $2000-$3000 and find that your purchase is not at all what you envisioned.
Windmills are exactly what they look like, cheap energy machines that will lower our total cost of energy and reliance on burning substances that people are literally killing each other over, including the current war partially to raise prices for the venezuelan spoils to make investment sense.
Way to miss the point.
I spent $1000 on a VR headset, and it wasn’t what I envisioned. It was way better. Having played in VR, I don’t even bother with flatscreen games anymore. It’s not just putting the screen closer to your eyes. It’s an entirely different paradigm. And it’s fucking kickass.
Everyone I’ve seen whining about how VR isn’t that great and isn’t going to catch on and various problems that they imagine etc is acting like a boomer complaining about cellphones. Or Texans trying to say electric cars are worse than ICE cars
Congrats, i’m glad you like it and doesn’t give you the issues it gave me.
The headset I bought was the original HTC Vive, which was $800 at the time which adjusted for inflation would probably be close to $1500 today. At the time had a 1080ti which was the fastest gpu. I spared no expense, did drill in wall mounting and the whole nine yards, and devoted an entire room to it. Total waste of time, but glad I tried it to realize just how bad it was for me.
It might surprise you to learn, but we were getting from point A to B for a long time, and there are people even today who get headaches from cars, and not even from the noise, which was much worse with early cars. Do you think sitting near an engine with almost nothing between it and you was a relaxing experience, or risking death just starting it was a big sell?
All these corpo thigs hoping the VCs notice the “replacement” before the tower comes crashing down on them. Morons. The whole lot of them!
tax corporations that replace workers with automations.
citizens that don’t work, don’t generate tax revenue for local municipalities. that loss has to be recouped somewhere, and the best place is from the companies that are causing the reduction in tax revenue.
The headline (as in AI replacing jobs) is as real as the CRAP (Computer Rendered Artificial Picture) it uses.
i cant help but wonder why they used a photo that looks like ai for this article
I think it is AI, who stands like that with all their faces magically in focus, and in view?
Also, the building looks a lot like the Zuckbook building… But it taint at least according to my hunts
yeah i shouldnt have said photo. i agree it IS ai. i meant to say that it even looks like it is. a goofy choice for this article.
innovative tech corp LOL
The stock market is going up despite all this. I think investors think that profits will continue to go up while jobs are being cut. Which means these corps must now do more with less people. And the market thinks thats going to lead to more profits still.
I guess they think the future will be much more automated and need people less. And they could be right.
stock market is a forecast of projected future profits.
if investors thing a companies choices will make profits go up next year, they buy. if they don’t, they sell.
Ideally, yes.
In practice, if investors think the stock price will be higher in the future, they buy.
Dividends are such a tiny amount compared to the value of the share, that in reality it’s all just speculation on how people are going to speculate.
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