“Are we building tools to replace ourselves?”: Survivor’s guilt hits AI-first tech companies

As big tech companies lay off employees and say AI will fill the gap, workers are having to confront what’s really going on.

Andrew Hamilton’s job should be safe.

He came of age in a golden age for programmers, when the demand for code far exceeded the speed at which people could write it.

But now AI tools are threatening the end of the good times. Even as a self-proclaimed early adopter of AI tools, Hamilton was affected by a wave of AI-related job losses that swept the industry.

He was laid off last month along with 4,000 of his former colleagues at Block – the company behind Square, Afterpay and Cash App.

The company cut 40 percent of its workforce, citing improvements in AI as a reason it needed fewer staff.

Several other major tech companies have made similar cuts and cited the same reason. Atlassian has cut 10 percent of its workforce. Meta is reportedly planning 20 percent layoffs. Amazon laid off 16,000 employees in January. At WiseTech there were 2,000.

It’s enough to send a…