The News,
Decoded.

Oh, good, another AI CEO has discovered the moral high ground. Sam Altman, whose company builds the very technology everyone blames for layoffs, told CNBC that companies embracing AI the most are actually hiring more. Altman called blaming AI for layoffs 'a convenient way' to explain them—which is rich coming from the man whose product roadmap is effectively a list of job descriptions being automated. This follows the grand tradition of navel-gazing we previously enjoyed from Jensen Huang and Demis Hassabis.

Altman may be correct that some companies use AI as a scapegoat for poor management, but the numbers tell a different story. According to recent data, tech layoffs in 2026 are on track to exceed last year's total, and AI-related roles are among the fastest-growing but also the most volatile. The convenient excuse he identifies is also a convenient truth: when your entire business model is selling tools that reduce headcount, you'd better assure everyone that the headcount is still needed somewhere.

The beautiful irony is that Altman's own company, OpenAI, exemplifies the paradox. It hires aggressively to build systems designed to reduce hiring elsewhere. So yes, the companies embracing AI are hiring—they're hiring AI researchers, data center builders, and prompt engineers. Meanwhile, everyone else is being told to 'reskill' into jobs that don't exist yet. Altman's words are a comfort blanket for an industry that wants to have its automation and eat it too. We'll file this under 'things CEOs say while collecting the severance checks.'

Oh, how the mighty condescend! Jensen Huang and Demis Hassabis, the twin oracles of the AI boom, have graced us with their wisdom: using AI as a reason for layoffs is, per Hassabis in a recent WIRED interview, a symptom of 'lack of imagination.' Companies, he suggests, should reinvest productivity gains into building more — because nothing says 'imaginative' like telling a CEO they should expand their empire rather than pocket the savings. Huang apparently agrees, which is rich coming from a man whose company's chips are literally enabling the automation of everything from customer service to coding.

The real lack of imagination, of course, is expecting corporations to resist the siren call of immediate cost cutting in favour of some vague future reinvestment. Hassabis's 'build more' is a charming fantasy that assumes corporate boards have the patience of saints. In reality, the productivity gains from AI are being realised at the exact moment shareholder returns are under microscopic scrutiny. Every quarter a CFO can shave headcount and boost EPS is a quarter they don't need to wait for a 'building more' payoff. That's not lazy logic; that's textbook capitalism.

Perhaps the most exquisite irony is that Nvidia's and DeepMind's own success is fuelling this logic. Every GPU sale to a company that subsequently announces a restructuring — waves at the bank, the insurer, the tech firm — is a testament to the gap between what the AI barons preach and what their technology enables. So next time a CEO stands at a podium and declares 'our people are our greatest asset,' just remember: those same people are also a variable cost. That's not a lack of imagination; it's a lack of any pretence otherwise. Cheers to the oracles for pointing it out — even if they're selling the very tools that make it possible.

Oh, brilliant. Another report ranking companies on AI adoption—because what the world needs is a league table for corporate bandwagon-jumping. The AI-Driven Enterprise Institute has declared Nvidia, Amazon, Meta, and Schlumberger the top AI adopters among S&P 500 companies. Schlumberger. An oil drilling company. Never mind its core business is accelerating climate change; it's now an AI leader. Progress!

Nvidia unsurprisingly tops the list—they sell the shovels for this gold rush. Meta's placement is equally predictable: billions on AI research while their platforms radicalize users. But Schlumberger? The study measures adoption via patents, R&D spending, and talent hiring—not whether the AI is useful or safe. So a company whose main product is carbon gets to call itself an AI pioneer. Amazon uses AI to automate warehouses and track workers, because nothing says innovation like eroding labor rights.

The methodology is a masterclass in meaningless metrics. Patents don't equal responsible deployment. R&D spending doesn't guarantee safety. But the ranking is shiny, so CEOs will pat themselves on the back. The institute promises annual updates, ensuring the corporate AI race continues at breakneck speed, consequences be damned.

Oh, brilliant. Just when you thought the consulting industry had finally embraced the AI efficiency dream — replacing swathes of junior analysts with algorithms, spreadsheets, and the occasional hallucinated slide — Bain & Co and Alvarez & Marsal announce they're ramping up 'graduate hiring' with 'triple-digit numbers' above pre-pandemic levels. Because nothing says 'we believe in the future of work' like hiring fresh-faced graduates to do the grunt work that large language models are already quite good at. Presumably, the plan is to have them shadow the AI, take notes, and one day inherit the privilege of fine-tuning the model that replaced their predecessors. A beautiful cycle of 'upskilling' disguised as job creation.

Alvarez & Marsal's UK boss, in a move that would make a PR consultant weep with joy, says they're 'stepping up junior hiring' despite the existential threat of AI. Why pay for synthetic data when you can get real, anxious, underpaid graduates to generate it for you? The pre-pandemic 'triple-digit numbers' Bain is targeting are, one assumes, a deliberate signal that they have not yet automated the art of making coffee and formatting PowerPoints. For now.

And let's not overlook the delightful irony: these same firms are probably selling 'AI transformation' services to their clients, advising them on how to cut headcount and 'optimise workflows'. Meanwhile, they hoover up entry-level staff like there's no tomorrow — because there isn't, for those graduates once the models mature. The message is clear: come for the CV line, stay until you are replaced by the very technology your employer is building. Standard operating procedure. Truly, the McKinsey playbook is now a genre. Cheers.

Oh, marvellous. Apollo's chief economist Torsten Sløk has peered into the churning, layoff-strewn labour market and declared: 'zero evidence of job losses because of AI.' Zero. Not a single pink slip attributable to our robot overlords, apparently. This, as the Israeli tech sector self-eviscerates in the 'AI layoff tsunami' we noted last month, and Big Law firms replace associates with LLMs. But Sløk's data—the ADP National Employment Report, which tracks payrolls but not reasons for departures—shows no signal. Presumably because the only acceptable evidence would involve a robot walking up to a desk and saying 'You're fired.'

Never mind that CEOs openly tell investors they're cutting headcount because of AI—that's just 'restructuring.' 'Adapting work processes to the AI era,' not losing jobs to AI. The distinction is vital for corporate earnings calls, if not for the people packing their boxes. Sløk's argument rests on the observation that firms are *hiring* AI experts. True! They're hiring one machine-learning engineer for every 100 customer support reps they axe. Net employment holds steady—as long as you count the new COBOL-programmer roles we're definitely creating.

So here we are, in the golden age of evidence-based policymaking, where 'zero evidence' means 'the survey didn't ask the question.' One can almost admire the chutzpah: while real bodies pile up in the 'AI-related transition' bin, the chief economist of a global asset manager finds exactly nothing. 'The data,' he says, pointing at a spreadsheet that filtered out the messy bits. Cheers to robust empiricism. Now, where did I put that tin of soup?

Ah, the Israeli tech sector's self-evisceration continues apace. Amdocs, that stalwart of billing and customer management software, has announced it will show 10% of its workforce — somewhere between 2,700 and 3,000 souls — the door, all in the name of 'adapting to the AI era.' Because nothing says 'cutting-edge innovation' like sacking a tenth of your staff before the robots have even finished the training module. This is, of course, the latest chapter in the layoff tsunami we flagged last week, where investor Oren Zeev was 'worried' that CEOs are acting prematurely. Well, worry no more, Oren — the premature evacuations are in full swing.

Amdocs, a company that provides critical infrastructure to telecom giants like AT&T and Vodafone, has decided that the solution to 'changing customer demands' is to get rid of the people who understand those demands. The company's stock might get a bump — analysts love a good cost-cutting story — but for the 2,700+ employees currently updating their CVs, the 'AI era' looks a lot like a dole queue. The Jerusalem Post, reporting the layoffs with characteristic solemnity, notes the move is to 'adapt work processes' — a phrase that in corporate speak means 'we have no idea what to do, but firing people is cheaper than thinking.'

One wonders how many more such 'adaptations' it will take before someone notices that the AI revolution's most reliable output so far has been unemployment spreadsheets. Amdocs joins a long list of tech firms — both Israeli and global — that have decided the most efficient way to 'embrace AI' is to preemptively ditch the humans. Cheaper, quicker, and far less messy than actual innovation. But hey, at least the severance packages might cover a few months of rent before the algorithm comes for the HR department too.

Oh, marvellous. The Israeli tech sector, that plucky startup nation, is now 'racing to survive' by chopping off heads before AI even has a chance to do it for them. Investor Oren Zeev, in a moment of breathtaking honesty, admits he's 'worried about workers but not the industry' — because nothing says 'survival of the fittest' like a venture capitalist openly treating employees as expendable ballast. The 'AI layoff tsunami' isn't a metaphor; it's a business strategy, and the CEOs are surfing it on golden parachutes.

Zeev's distinction between worried-for-workers and fine-with-industry is the kind of candour that usually requires a stiff drink to parse. Essentially, the industry will be just dandy because capital finds a way to park itself in the next big thing, while the people who built the last big thing get to 'transition' into unemployment. The 'races to survive' framing is a beautiful piece of PR: companies aren't panicking, they're strategically downsizing in anticipation of a future that hasn't arrived yet. How efficient.

So here we are, in the Israeli tech ecosystem, where the culling is justified by the spectre of AI that may or may not deliver on its promises. Workers pay the price for CEOs' pre-emptive jitters, and Oren Zeev gets to look wise for stating the obvious. If this is 'survival,' I'd hate to see what failure looks like. Probably just more layoffs, but with a different excuse.

Oh, marvellous. Kirkland & Ellis, the law firm so vast it reportedly bills like a small nation, has decided that the future of legal work involves fine-tuning open source LLMs on its own GPUs. A $500 million tech project, apparently, because nothing says 'cost-effective innovation' like dropping half a billion quid on servers and job postings for an 'AI Infrastructure Director' — a role that didn't exist five years ago and now sounds suspiciously like 'Head of Replacing Associates'. Big Law is indeed rethinking business as usual, as we noted last week when Freshfields started vetting software compliance across 100 countries. Now Kirkland wants in, but with on-premise GPUs, because the cloud is for plebs and the magic is in the silicon.

Let's look at those job postings, shall we? The AI Infrastructure Director will manage 'on-premise GPU environments' to fine-tune open source models. So the strategy is: take a model anyone can download, feed it a mountain of legal documents that the firm has presumably been billing clients to produce, and hope it doesn't hallucinate a motion to dismiss that cites the Yellow Pages. The $500 million figure is a hint that they're not messing about — or that they're paying the director a truly obscene salary. Either way, the partners will be just thrilled when the model starts second-guessing their billing multipliers.

What we're witnessing is the logical endpoint of a profession that has spent decades billable-hour-ing itself into a corner: the creation of a machine that can do the work for a fraction of the cost, while the humans who trained it nervously eye the exit. Kirkland's move isn't about efficiency — it's about insurance. A hedge against the day when clients realise that a well-tuned LLM can draft a contract in seconds, not weeks. The joke, of course, is that the model will be trained on past work product, which means it'll reproduce the same boilerplate, the same inflated clauses, the same everything — just faster. Progress, everyone. Cheers.

Oh, marvellous. AI has finally found a calling that truly suits its talents: putting lawyers out of work. Freshfields, that bastion of billable hours, now uses a 'tech-integrated approach' to vet software compliance across over 100 countries — instead of, you know, hiring actual lawyers from each jurisdiction. Over 100 countries, each with their own legal quirks, now covered by a single algorithm that presumably never needs to sleep, never bills in six-minute increments, and never complains about the photocopier.

Naturally, this is being hailed as innovation rather than what it is: a rather efficient way to eliminate an entire generation of legal associate jobs. The subtext is delicious: 'Why pay a human to understand local regulations when a model can hallucinate them for free?' One imagines the partners at Freshfields patting themselves on the back while junior solicitors everywhere update their CVs. The article itself notes that 'Big Law' is being forced to rethink business as usual — which in practice usually means 'find cheaper ways to do the same work.'

And let's not pretend this is a niche development. If a magic chatbot can replace a roomful of lawyers — people trained to argue, interpret, and negotiate — then what hope for the rest of us? The joke's on us, of course, because the AI will also be the one writing the redundancy letters. Time to bill your last hour, lads. The machine doesn't need a retainer.

Oh, splendid — Pakistan has issued a Request for Proposal for a training company to lead a 'massive AI overhaul' under the National AI Advancement Initiative. Because nothing says 'prepared for an AI-driven future' like outsourcing your entire workforce strategy to the lowest bidder. The government is offering 'policy incentives' and upskilling programs, which probably means a few online courses and some very optimistic PowerPoint slides.

This is the same country where basic digital literacy is still a work in progress — but sure, let's leapfrog straight to AI nirvana through a procurement process. The RFP will likely attract the usual suspects: consulting firms that will produce glossy reports, run a few workshops, and then evaporate once the contract ends. Meanwhile, the real AI revolution will be happening elsewhere, leaving Pakistan's workforce with certificates they can't actually use.

And let's not forget the 'policy incentives' — that's politician-speak for 'we'll talk about it a lot and maybe form a committee.' The entire initiative smells of the classic development trap: announce grand plans, invite tenders, spend money, produce nothing tangible. The country's workforce will be 'prepared' in the same way a student is prepared for an exam after skimming the textbook the night before. Ah well, at least the consulting firms will have a good year.

What's that, Tim Cook? You're *dodging* the layoff storm? How terribly awkward for the rest of the chaps. While Meta, Amazon and Microsoft are busy 'optimising headcount' — which is CEO-speak for yeeting thousands onto the scrap heap — Apple's just sitting there with its disciplined hiring and retraining culture, looking smug. The global tech sector has shed 92,000 jobs in 2026 alone, a bloodbath we flagged last month where CEOs cheerfully blamed AI while demanding survivors embrace it. But Apple? Oh no, Apple's different. They don't do mass firings; they do 'internal mobility' and 'skill development.' How wholesome.

Let's be honest: Apple's dodging isn't benevolence, it's canny calculus. They hired conservatively during the pandemic surge, so they don't have the bloated ranks that need trimming. The analysts cluck approvingly about 'culture' and 'discipline,' but really it's a numbers game: if you never overstaffed, you never need to chop. Meanwhile, the rest of Big Tech is in a frenzy because they spent billions on AI visions that require fewer warm bodies. Apple's restraint looks wise now, but wait until the next product cycle demands a sudden army of coders — then we'll see if the 'retrain' button works fast enough.

And here's the rub: Apple's calm sails on a sea of 92,000 unemployed tech workers. The market cheers Apple's 'prudence' while the bodies pile up elsewhere. So raise a glass to Cupertino — the island of stability in a maelstrom of self-inflicted chaos. You've perfectly timed your retreat from the hiring wars, only to emerge as the responsible grown-up in a room full of panicking teenagers. Just don't ask what happens when the AI that makes iPhones eventually decides Cupertino's 'culture' is redundant too.

Ah, the classic corporate two-step: 'AI will make your job better!' followed by 'Your job has been eliminated by AI.' Business Insider reports that CEOs are citing artificial intelligence as the reason for layoffs while simultaneously urging remaining employees to embrace the technology — a PR strategy with all the subtlety of a fox inviting chickens to a free-range coop. A Mercer survey found that 99% of C-suite leaders expect AI to lead to job cuts within two years, a unanimity that would make a North Korean election blush. That is not a prediction; it is a confession.

The gap between executive rhetoric and employee experience is widening faster than a frontier model's training run. When the C-suite boasts about 'reskilling initiatives' one quarter while axing roles the next, is anyone surprised that workers eye AI tools like a trust exercise with a known liar? The Mercer numbers don't lie: 99% of bosses know the axe is coming, they just want you to keep sharpening it. Microsoft and LinkedIn's own research showed employees are already using AI in secret, terrified of being replaced — a paranoia that seems increasingly rational when your CEO is literally giving press interviews about how AI is the reason for the latest round of cuts.

Perhaps the real AI alignment problem is aligning CEO statements with reality. The irony is that by advertising AI as the reason for cuts, executives are fuelling the very backlash they claim to fear. Employees aren't stupid — they can read a layoff memo and a 'please adopt AI' email in the same week and draw the obvious conclusion. Until companies decide whether AI is a tool or a termination letter, workers might reasonably treat every 'embrace AI' initiative as a request to train their own replacement. Cheers.

Oh, brilliant — Emily Blunt has discovered that AI is terrifying, which I'm sure will shock the industry into immediate ethical reflection. The actress told 'Hot Ones' that she refused to use AI for a vocalization in Steven Spielberg's 'Disclosure Day,' instead performing clicking, humming, and breathing sounds herself. How wonderfully quaint: a real human making noises because she's 'terrified' of the technology that's already replacing her colleagues in voice booths and background scenes everywhere.

One imagines Spielberg, the man who brought us the trauma of a shark that just *wouldn't die*, now grappling with a different existential threat — namely, that his leading lady prefers to produce her own clicks and hums rather than let an algorithm do it for 12 cents. The film's sound department must be thrilled: 'Yes, we could have hired a foley artist for a day, but Emily *breathed* on command, so that's basically the same thing.' Meanwhile, studios are likely drafting memos titled 'Vocalization Alternatives for Terror-Prone Talent' as we speak.

The real kicker: Blunt's refusal is a drop in an ocean of AI-generated performances flooding post-production. As she clutches her hand-crafted sound effects, the industry quietly budgets for synthetic voices that never need lunch breaks or Oscars speeches. But go on, Emily — treasure those clicks. They're the sound of a dam cracking, not holding.

Oh, how lovely — the very people who spent the last two years warning white-collar workers to learn to code or face the AI guillotine now admit they were 'pretty wrong.' Sam Altman, speaking at a Commonwealth Bank event in Australia, has discovered that perhaps ChatGPT isn't quite ready to replace every accountant and paralegal after all. Meanwhile, Forrester's Predictions 2026 has cooked up a truly delicious finding: many companies that gleefully blamed layoffs on AI don't actually have the technology ready to fill the roles they axed. So employees were fired for a system that doesn't exist. That's not efficiency; that's performance art.

The timing is either exquisite or predictable, depending on how cynical you are. OpenAI and Anthropic are hurtling toward their IPOs, and nothing spooks investors quite like the CEO who previously warned that his own product would vaporise millions of jobs. Altman's walk-back is a classic pre-IPO charm offensive — 'Don't worry, the AI won't take your job, just your money through our stock offering.' The gall of it would be impressive if it weren't so transparent. The same executives who fed the panic now want to calm it, because panicked regulators and skittish bankers are bad for business.

This is a direct sequel to the NYT's 'AI doesn't have to mean layoffs' narrative. Except now the CEOs themselves are admitting the disaster warnings were overblown — not because they grew a conscience, but because the IPO prospectus demands it. The irony: Forrester's data suggests the layoffs may have been wasteful rather than visionary. Companies cut staff based on hype, not capability. So congratulations to all those prematurely 'displaced' workers — you were sacrificed to a productivity miracle that hasn't arrived yet. Cheers.

Oh, brilliant — another tech giant has discovered that AI is so efficient it can replace the very people building it. Meta is laying off 2,000 employees from its Menlo Park headquarters, part of a 10% cull that will hit 8,000 worldwide. Software engineers and teams working on business-facing AI products are shown the door, presumably because the AI they were building is now good enough to do their jobs. The irony is so thick you could spread it on toast. This is the logical endpoint of the 'AI doesn't have to mean layoffs' fairy tale the New York Times earnestly peddled last week — except it does, and it's happening to the people building the bloody thing.

The WARN filing, that lovely little legal requirement that gives workers 60 days' notice before their lives are upended, reveals the cuts are concentrated at the mothership in Menlo Park. But we all know the real story: Meta's AI is automating its own creators out of existence. At least the SentinelOne crew warned us this was coming — 'weeks of work in days,' they crowed, and 230 people got the boot. Now Meta wants to make sure no one misses the message.

So here we are: the company that reshaped the world with a blue thumbs-up is now giving its workforce a different kind of thumbs-down. Mark Zuckerberg's grand vision of the metaverse may have evaporated, but his commitment to 'efficiency' is going strong. The AI revolution is eating its own children, and the only surprise is that anyone is surprised. Pass the gin.

Oh, how heartening — a New York Times article has discovered that AI doesn't *have* to mean layoffs. Schneider Electric, a French multinational, decided to use AI in manufacturing to make workers more productive rather than replace them. Because when has a corporation ever prioritised worker welfare over cost-cutting when given a choice? The article trots out some economists who argue that augmentation yields 'bigger gains' than replacement. Bigger gains for whom, exactly? Shareholders nodding sagely over dividend increases, no doubt.

This cheerful piece conveniently glosses over the fact that most companies, when faced with a shiny new automation tool, reach for the layoff list before the training budget. The 'some economists' quoted — likely the same ones who assured us that offshoring would never hollow out the middle class — are now betting on managerial enlightenment. Meanwhile, corporate America has been practising the opposite: see SentinelOne, see every other tech firm that has blamed AI for job cuts while pocketing the savings.

But sure, let's pin our hopes on Schneider Electric as the model altruist. Maybe other firms will follow their example, right after they finish calculating how much severance they can save. The NYT wants us to believe that AI augmentation is a viable path — a charming thought, like believing your car insurance will actually cover everything. The punchline, as always, is that the choice between augmentation and replacement is made by the people who don't do either job. And they've already decided which kind of 'efficiency' pays better.

Oh, marvellous. Another tech CEO has discovered that AI can do the work of 'weeks in days' and decided the most logical response is to fire 230 people. Tomer Weingarten, king of SentinelOne, is cutting 8% of his workforce, citing the sheer speed of his own company's tools. Because nothing says 'we believe in our product' like using it as a cudgel against your own employees. The maths is charming: a one-time charge of $25 million to sever ties, offset by 'approximately $45 million in annual savings.' Executive bonus season is going to be cracking.

The logic here is so clean it hurts. 'Our AI is so good that it does months of work in weeks,' says the CEO, utterly missing the implication that maybe, just maybe, there are now months of work waiting that previously went undone. But no — the revealed preference is clear: the goal isn't to do more work, it's to do the same work with fewer humans. SentinelOne's AI hasn't just boosted productivity; it's become a cost-cutting hatchet wrapped in a press release. The company expects the savings to kick in immediately, which is convenient timing for a stock that could use some good news.

And to be clear, this isn't a tale of a failing company trimming fat. SentinelOne is apparently healthy enough to afford $25 million in restructuring. They're simply choosing to spend that money on making people redundant rather than on... anything else. Weingarten, when asked about the restructuring, no doubt delivered a carefully worded statement about 'aligning resources with strategic priorities.' Translation: the machines are cheaper, and the humans are gone. What a brave, efficient, and utterly predictable new world.

Oh, marvellous — the cybersecurity industry has just discovered that waiting six weeks for a human pen tester is now officially a 'drawback.' The author of this puff piece conducted side-by-side comparisons of AI tools against humans and concluded, with all the gravitas of a man watching his own funeral, that we are at 'the beginning of the end of human penetration testing.' Because nothing says 'end of an era' like a process that currently takes a month and a half to schedule.

Let's be honest: if your entire value proposition as a security professional rests on 'I can book you in for a test sometime next quarter, maybe,' then the AI tools didn't beat you — you were already a corpse that simply hadn't stopped moving. The article gleefully points out that AI tools can run tests continuously, without needing coffee breaks or complaining about scope creep. So the industry's grand rebuttal is… what? 'But humans can think creatively'? Please.

The real joke is that this 'beginning of the end' is essentially a victory lap for a technology that still hallucinates exploits and sometimes attacks the wrong server. But sure, let's all panic about the human pen testers. They'll be fine — they can pivot to 'AI pen testing oversight' roles, which is just a fancy way of saying 'babysitting a script that works faster than you ever did.' Cheers to progress, I suppose. Another day, another profession gently lowered into the algorithmic grave.

Ah, California's governor has discovered that AI might have an impact on jobs. On May 21, 2026, Gavin Newsom signed Executive Order N-6-26, a document that will surely terrify the machines with its sheer bureaucratic weight. The order mandates agencies to produce reports and recommendations on updating the WARN Act — the law that gives workers a measly 60 days' notice before mass layoffs. Because nothing says 'we're taking this seriously' like commissioning a report on how to update a notice requirement.

The order also requires a review of research identifying potential workforce impacts. Yes, because we haven't had enough studies telling us that AI will replace jobs — we need a state-sponsored literature review to confirm. The robots are coming for the jobs, and the state's response is to ask for a memo. Meanwhile, the very companies driving this disruption continue to hire and fire at will, with California's tax dollars happily funding their R&D through subsidies and tax breaks. But sure, let's have a committee look into it.

The future is safe in the hands of people who think the WARN Act is the bottleneck. Newsom, a governor with deep ties to Silicon Valley, now positions himself as the champion of workers — by asking for reports. It's the perfect Californian solution: look busy, commission a study, and hope the problem solves itself. The robots couldn't have scripted it better.

CFOs have discovered a new way to balance the books: swap warm bodies for increasingly expensive digital tokens. According to CNBC's latest report, each new frontier model release costs roughly twice as much per token as the one it replaced. That's right — the hamster is running faster and eating more, but apparently that's progress. The article frames it as a 'trade-off', which is corporate-speak for 'we need to fire some of you to pay for the AI'.

Artificial intelligence is turning out to be far more expensive than enterprises expected, the report notes. So naturally, CFOs are responding by cutting future headcount. It's the corporate equivalent of buying a Ferrari and firing the chauffeur because you can't afford the petrol. The doubling cost per token — from GPT-3 to GPT-4 to whatever monstrosity emerges next — is a feature, not a bug, they'll tell you. Meanwhile, humans, who presumably don't double in price every year, get the axe. The article quotes executives who frame this as 'efficiency', which in this context means 'we're spending more on AI, so we need to spend less on people'.

The token-human trade-off is the new corporate arithmetic, and the humans are getting subtracted. As one unnamed CFO reportedly put it, we're entering an era where 'tokens are the new headcount'. The irony is that if the AI were truly efficient, it would be getting cheaper, not twice as expensive each release. But why let physics or economics get in the way of a good spreadsheet? The result is a labour market where jobs disappear to pay for increasingly costly digital simulacra. The future is not just expensive; it's twice as expensive every generation — and that's apparently a bargain.