Mastodawn

Since ChatGPT came out in late 2022, over *half a million* tech workers have been laid off. That fact, and their voices, aren't really shaping the conversation about AI, and what "AI" really means in culture. So I started to get into it: https://www.anildash.com/2026/01/06/500k-tech-workers-laid-off/

500,000 tech workers have been laid off since ChatGPT was released

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Anil Dash

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Wulfy—Speaker to the machines Jan 7

@anildash

Not sure if LLMs are useless and do nothing
or
They caused half a mil of workers loss.

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Peter van Heusden (he/him) 🗿Jan 7

@anildash there were mass layoffs happening in tech before ChatGPT 3.5 was released (November 2022). Twitter, Meta, Lyft, Shopify, Netflix, etc. This reinforces your point: tech bosses were looking to "right size" workforces, especially given the looming threat of tech worker organising, the AI hype wave conveniently played into that. (BTW at ACM FAccT 2022, Boag et al discussed tech worker collective action as a challenge to tech corporate harms, mentioning some of the corporate retaliation)