Fourth Straight Year of "AI Will Replace Jobs" Claims, Still No Evidence, Engineer Says
dominic__612 · reddit · 2026-08-28
A network engineer kicks off a Reddit discussion: this is the fourth year hearing CEOs claim AI will replace masses of jobs within a year, and from the front lines he has seen zero evidence.
His observations:
- Big companies attributing mass layoffs to AI feel like an investor-friendly excuse; Ford's AI-justified engineering layoffs didn't end well;
- Some firms gave staff AI to boost productivity, only to find burned credits cost more than gains with lower quality—hiring extra FTEs was cheaper;
- Across networking, BI, security and customer service at his clients, adoption is "basically zero" because there's no solid business case;
- He personally pays for OpenAI/Anthropic but says the models are "equally dumb as intelligent"—spotting a bug in 1000 lines in seconds, then advising something that takes the network down. Tools in the toolbox, nothing more.
He ends by asking the community for counterexamples: has anyone seen AI implementation that actually saves or makes money?
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