[norseboar]

Is there actually an epidemic of firing programmers for AI? Based on the companies/people I know, I wouldn't have thought so.

I've heard of many companies encouraging their engineers to use LLM-backed tools like Cursor or just Copilot, a (small!) number that have made these kinds of tools mandatory (what "mandatory" means is unclear), and many companies laying people off because money is tight.

But I haven't heard of anybody who was laid off b/c the other engineers were so much more productive w/ AI that they decided to downsize the team, let alone replace a team entirely.

Is this just my bubble? Mostly Bay Area companies, mostly in the small-to-mid range w/ a couple FAANG.

[CM30]

There are definitely a fair few companies laying off programmers at the moment, though few of the ones I've seen blamed it on AI (usually more either overhiring, the pandemic ending and usage going down, or someone thinking they can outsource everything to save money). Wouldn't be surprised if a few tried to say it was because of AI when it was really for some other reason though.