New Bipartisan Bill Would Require Companies To Report AI Job Losses
- Reference: 0179976528
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/11/05/2119253/new-bipartisan-bill-would-require-companies-to-report-ai-job-losses
- Source link:
"This bipartisan legislation will finally give us a clear picture of AI's impact on the workforce," Warner said in a statement. "Armed with this information, we can make sure AI drives opportunity instead of leaving workers behind."
[1] https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-warner-to-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-revealing-number-of-jobs-lost-to-ai/
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/05/ai-jobs-act-warner-hawley.html
[3] https://www.hawley.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/AI-Related-Job-Impacts-Clarity-Act.pdf
It'll be interesting... (Score:2)
...to see whether these reports to the government align with the press releases that announce the layoffs. The latter always attribute the layoff to AI, but I assume that's mostly just marketing.
Will there be consequences for giving the government that same explanation, if the real reason for the layoff is just standard financial belt-tightening?
If no consequences, then companies that miss this opportunity are going to regret it.
Re: (Score:2)
There are legal implications for lying about corporate operations.
I suspect they're mostly truthful.
Selling a product falls under a different set of rules than selling shares of your company.
OMG! JOB LOSS!! AI!!1 (Score:2)
"We must do something! This is something, therefore we must do it."
...and nothing was accomplished, but it was a performative nothing.
Lesson from E-Verify: (Score:2)
...if there are only toothless penalties on the plutocrats who lie and cheat, the data will useless. They like to hide the reasons they cut staff to keep investors from knowing what's really going on.
Another way to say this: any bill that actually punishes slimy plutocrats will likely never pass.
True but if they are forced to say AI takes jobs (Score:2)
Then that's going to start conversations about the future of work without jobs.
We count all be plumbers.
Pointless (Score:2)
Does is matter much if you lose a job because of AI instead of offshoring or any other reason? What prevents a company from eliminating jobs because they've contracted with a third party that provides the services for them that may be done in let or whole by AI and not reporting it because they're not replacing anyone with AI themselves? They may not even know to what extent AI is being used by that third party to even be able to report it. Maybe they hired a consultant that's actually an AI masquerading as
New Excuse - AI did it. (Score:2)
That woman that refused my advances? We fired her because AI took her job. Same with that guy that accused me of stealing his lunch.
Sounds like bigger government to me! (Score:2)
And bigger government is the last thing anyone needs. And now that I think about it how good is the BLS data anymore?
Re: Sounds like bigger government to me! (Score:1)
And bigger government is the last thing anyone needs
When asked for comment, a government spokesperson said
> You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. Your life, as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service us.
real issue is definition (Score:1)
The definition for AI is
The term "artificial intelligence" means a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments. Artificial intelligence systems use machine and human-based inputs toâ"
(A) perceive real and virtual environments;
(B) abstract such perceptions into models through analysis in an automated manner; and
(C) use model inference to formulate options for information or acti
Re: (Score:2)
Also, the definition of "AI job loss." How would a business determine whether a job loss is actually due to AI?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know, but given that they already make such claims, they must know.
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt it. Or, if they know, they know it's BS. Sure, there are probably some jobs somewhere, that have been lost to AI, but not nearly as many as claimed. Most of them were probably just using "AI" as a cover for "we're not doing well and had to lay people off."
Re: (Score:2)
Presumably, they mean due to their internal use of AI.
I.e., the cost of job X has gone from $70,000 a year to $15,000 a year. $70,000 payout eliminated.
How do I know if a job loss is due to me replacing one of my guys with another? Pretty fucking simple, actually.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what they'd like you to think happened, anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
lol. Your tinfoil is choking off the circulation to your brain, my friend.
Re: (Score:2)
Whatever. I've actually used AI. It's nowhere near being able to "replace" actual employees. It makes too many mistakes. It can *assist* employees, but it needs to be supervised as closely as a kid trying to do an office job.
So when companies say they are reducing headcount by implementing AI, what they are really claiming is that AI has increased the productivity of their people so much that they have been able to reduce headcount. But the actual statistics don't back up that kind of claim. MIT, for exampl
Re: (Score:2)
> Whatever. I've actually used AI. It's nowhere near being able to "replace" actual employees.
Incorrect. It already has.
> It makes too many mistakes.
Less than employees. We did much evaluation before pulling the trigger, here.
I'm sure other places had their own criteria to satisfy.
> It can *assist* employees, but it needs to be supervised as closely as a kid trying to do an office job.
Incorrect.
You are talking out of your ass. You clearly do not work in an environment where this is at play.
> So when companies say they are reducing headcount by implementing AI, what they are really claiming is that AI has increased the productivity of their people so much that they have been able to reduce headcount.
Incorrect.
Though that is part of the equation.
Some agent roles can be flat out replaced.
In some roles, assistance increases productivity which can lead to reduction in salary costs by removing people who have been made superfluous by a high
Re: (Score:2)
You made a bunch of statements about how wrong I am, but didn't back any of them up. I guess I just have to take your word for it.
On the productivity article, yes, I sent the wrong link. Here's the right one. [1]https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/2... [cnbc.com] This happened because I used Gemini to dig for the data, and you may have heard about how great AI is at attribution (not). It got the reference links mixed up.
There are various studies that show different levels of productivity gains. I honestly don't believe the mor
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/25/stanford-and-mit-study-ai-boosted-worker-productivity-by-14percent.html
Wrong focus (Score:2)
How about these SOBs focus on getting the appropriations bills passed that are required for the government to function? You know, one of their most basic functions they have failed at for YEARS now? Yep off topic but goddammit if these leeches can't their most basic job function why in hell should we expect them to do anything else??
Rant over
Completely unreliable data (Score:2)
As others have pointed out, you cannot rely on this data for anything meaningful. You could lay people off for any reason and blame it on AI, or lay them off because you think AI would do their work but use a completely different excuse.
This is a good example of completely pointless legislation that adds to the red tape problem.
Necessary? (Score:2)
Companies are generally incentivised to announce AI related layoffs because its a selling point to investors when you've developed software to reduce headcount.
I think if anything AI job losses are overblown, for exactly this reason.
Tech saw a decade of malinvestment due to expectations of growth over everything. They hired because hiring looked good to investors seeking growth. And they refused to do layoffs because it made their debt/hype fueled businesses look distressed, limiting investors' ability to p
what did Josh Hawley say? (Score:2)
this guy interned at the Heritage Foundation, tried to kill The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and challenged Biden's victory in 2020. We can probably guess he'd say,
"Armed with this information, we will know who lost their job to AI. This means they are unemployed and undeserving of anything. We will cut off healthcare, SNAP, Medicaid - everything - until they can prove they have a new job."
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Hawley#Electoral_history
\o/ (Score:1)
Let's play "Correlation is not causation".
*Beautiful assistant spins the wheel* whilst the audience claps enthusiastically.
In today's session we'll once again be grilling CEOs whose staff attrition curve looks as though it was copied from their use-of-AI curve but who didn't report losses due to AI.
*First contestant steps forwards*
Host beams at the audience
Host: Ladies and gentlemen, our first contestant is Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna!
Sebastian, your headcount fell 22% to 3,500 as AI adoption sur