Miguel Afonso Caetano"One of the things that I think people misunderstand about these layoffs is they think that it indicates somehow AI is successfully replacing all of these workers. But what’s important to understand is, these tech companies, they’re trying to get cost efficiencies now, in part because they’re spending an extraordinary amount of money trying to develop AI technologies. And they’re actually making a future bet that when they lay off the current human employees to gain current cost efficiencies, that they will hopefully then be able to automate them away later with AI. But it’s not, in fact, a representation of what AI can currently do.
But there are plenty of other sectors outside of the AI industry that are now doing the same thing. They’re also trying to make this future bet that they will be able to automate workers. And so, that is what’s actually having this cascading effect on the job market, where AI is being used as a justification to accelerate layoffs."
“AI Resist List”: Karen Hao on Data Center Resistance, Tech Billionaires, “Empire of AI” & More
We speak with journalist Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI, about the Trump administration’s alliance with tech billionaires, efforts to regulate artificial intelligence technology, and rising local opposition to data centers across the United States. “In 2025, these data center protests successfully stalled over $100 billion worth of these facilities,” says Hao. “It really does cut across political lines.” Hao recently launched The AI Resist List with a group of fellow journalists, researchers and technologists. It’s a collaborative project to track and reshape how artificial intelligence is deployed around the world.
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