Uber lays off almost a quarter of its HR and recruitment staff, but says it has nothing to do with AI

Uber is laying off nearly a quarter of its People and Places staff — a department name that sounds like it was generated by a poorly calibrated AI. HR and recruitment, essentially. But no, the company explicitly says these cuts have "nothing to do with AI." Right. Because when you fire a quarter of the people who hire and support your tens of thousands of drivers and employees, the decision is purely analog. Nothing algorithm-driven about it. Nothing to do with the self-driving ambitions or the chatbots that could replace recruiters. No, this is a human-led, human-for-humans restructuring. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber's CEO, must be very proud of that distinction.

Uber has a history of such efficiencies: over the years it has eliminated thousands of roles across engineering, product, and operations. Now it's HR's turn. The company calls it a "restructuring," which in corporate parlance means "we want fewer people on the payroll." And they are at pains to deny AI involvement — perhaps because the truth would confirm investors' suspicions that AI is finally delivering on its promise of replacing white-collar jobs. Or maybe it's just that admitting AI killed your HR department is bad optics. So they offer a distinction without a difference. You're not being replaced by an algorithm; you're being replaced by a "streamlining initiative." Reassuring.

The real joke is the insistence. "Nothing to do with AI." It's a mantra that invites the exact question it seeks to suppress. If it's not AI, what is it? Just the inexorable logic of capitalism? That's somehow less comforting. Meanwhile, the survivors will handle the workload of the departed quarter, likely with the help of new "tooling" that absolutely, definitely isn't AI. Sweet dreams, Dara. Sweet dreams.