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CentralMass

(16,984 posts)
Sat Mar 28, 2026, 11:30 PM Mar 28

Futureism- Sam Altman Thanks Programmers for Their Effort, Says Their Time Is Over [View all]

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sam-altman-thanks-programmers-over
"Thousands of tech workers are being laid off, from Atlassian slashing 1,600 jobs to Jack Dorsey’s fintech company Block firing almost half its workforce. Meta’s latest round of layoffs is rumored to affect an astonishing 20 percent or more of the company.

A common thread among these devastating cuts is industry leaders touting the capabilities of AI, claiming that the tech has made the workers who find themselves on the chopping block redundant. Whether those claims align with reality, or whether the layoffs are actually the result of corporate bloat and pandemic-era overhiring, is a topic of much debate.
In a Tuesday tweet that can only be described as twisting the knife, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman argued that “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,” he added. “Thank you for getting us to this point.”

It’s a particularly tone-deaf and borderline vindictive missive that suggests Altman has long given up on the idea of fairly compensating content creators and coders for their work. It’s no secret that OpenAI’s AI models were trained on data that was shamelessly scraped from the web, a controversial practice that has triggered a litany of copyright infringement lawsuits.

Altman’s remarks drew an overwhelmingly negative reaction.
The news comes as OpenAI desperately tries to keep up with the competition in an increasingly crowded enterprise and code-facing AI software landscape. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that executives had started ringing the alarm bells, calling for the company to double down on coding and enterprise customers"
“You’re welcome,” one user responded. “Nice to know that our reward is our jobs being taken away.”

Others called him a “f***ing psychopath” and “scum.”

“Nothing says ‘you’re being replaced’ quite like a heartfelt thank you from the guy doing the replacing,” one user wrote.
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What if they... 2naSalit Mar 28 #1
It's like the fuckin tulip mania of the 1630's struggle4progress Mar 28 #2
Bingo. multigraincracker Mar 29 #13
AI can only copy what has been done edhopper Mar 28 #3
The layoffs ARE about AI. These companies have all pissed away hundreds of millions of dollars Bluetus Mar 29 #6
Just to illustrate that point about curated LLMs Bluetus Mar 29 #16
Deep expose. cachukis Mar 29 #28
Very well explained. Thanks. cachukis Mar 29 #27
I think that if an individual has some knowledge or expertise and asks the right questions that it can lead CentralMass Mar 29 #9
The difference is edhopper Mar 29 #15
I understand your point, but i think that people who think that they are safe from it are being overly optomistic. CentralMass Mar 29 #18
I don't think anyone is safe edhopper Mar 29 #20
Are psychologists relatively safe? Dave says Mar 29 #25
+! struggle4progress Mar 29 #12
It's a lot more nuanced than that. tinrobot Mar 29 #17
Yes edhopper Mar 29 #21
Codex is beyond that. It has special tools built into it to automate coding that go beyond just being trained... FascismIsDeath Mar 29 #22
I get that edhopper Mar 29 #24
When circumstances are forcing you to lay off people... hunter Mar 28 #4
A year from now: they'll be hiring people back to debug AI slop code. JHB Mar 28 #5
I'm not sure about that. From what I can tell, it is getting better and better. With a knowledgeable programmer working CentralMass Mar 29 #10
It seems to be a bit soft, but I suspect it's more gristle and chewy. haele Mar 29 #7
As an immersed peruser of history, I like your study cachukis Mar 29 #29
Meanwhile, companies are hiring human programmers to fix all the shit AI does sakabatou Mar 29 #8
An AI response to a related question. CentralMass Mar 29 #19
Yeah, who's going to organize your fantastic new army of agentic AI? Gonna do it all yourself, Sam? 0rganism Mar 29 #11
The models are learning from him IbogaProject Mar 29 #14
I agree, that is a concern, one only partially addressed by exclusively running locally. 0rganism Mar 29 #31
I see your point. But the scenario id that the compamy employs a small team of very skilled coders abd ir engineers who CentralMass Mar 29 #23
It's definitely an awful situation, but there's an up-side too 0rganism Mar 29 #30
Five to one, baby, one in five... OC375 Mar 29 #26
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