If you want a cathartic launch from the information that Amazon laid off 16,000 workers, Block chopped almost half its workforce, Atlassian pared back 10% of staffers, and Meta is reportedly contemplating one other massive round of layoffs, all in the title of AI, then we invite you to browse the responses to a current Sam Altman submit on X.
Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, shared this on Tuesday:
“I have so much gratitude to people who wrote extremely complex software character-by-character. It already feels difficult to remember how much effort it really took. Thank you for getting us to this point.”
The drawback with that candy sentiment is that Altman’s firm ushered in the AI now getting used as an excuse for developer layoffs and fewer junior developer jobs. And it did so by coaching on huge volumes of code written the old style means — by the very individuals he’s now thanking.
His submit implies that builders’ genuinely difficult-to-master craft is now like a rotary phone: outdated and pointless.
Naturally, Altman’s feedback attracted memes and responses richer than his submit. While some had been straight-up angry, (“You’re welcome. Nice to know that our reward is our jobs being taken away”), a lot of the web did what it at all times does: cracked jokes.
There are hundreds of feedback. Some of our favorites:
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“Sam’s eulogy for software engineers”
“It’s times like this when I really miss the Sam Altman parody account”
“Dear devs You will lose your jobs forever and be forced to work in the coal mines But you can rest easy knowing sam Altman is grateful. ”
“Billion dollar app idea: AI that reads billionaire tweets before they post them and says ‘this is going to make you sound incredibly out of touch, are you sure?’”
“I have gratitude to OpenAI for doing all the AI work so I can have free Chinese open supply AI fashions to use ”
“This reads like something the Mayans would say right before the ceremony starts.”
And lastly, another excuse to trot out this meme: