Amazon Pitches AI Tools as Co-Workers While Axing Jobs
- Reference: 0180330721
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/08/141202/amazon-pitches-ai-tools-as-co-workers-while-axing-jobs
- Source link:
AWS CEO Matt Garman predicted on stage that autonomous "frontier agents" could represent 80 to 90% of enterprise AI value. Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president of applied AI solutions, described a future where companies manage "teams" of agents capable of working autonomously for hours or days while humans shift into supervisory roles. Amazon has already deployed agentic systems across tens of thousands of its own engineers to triage outages and propose fixes. The company calls these systems "teammates" rather than tools. CEO Andy Jassy has warned that AI would shrink Amazon's workforce, though a spokesperson attributed the current cuts to "reducing bureaucracy" and "removing layers" rather than AI deployment.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-12-08/amazon-pitches-ai-tools-as-co-workers-while-axing-jobs
[2] https://slashdot.org/story/25/10/28/0932258/amazon-says-it-will-cut-14000-corporate-roles-to-remove-layers
Remember, the problem AI solves is wages (Score:5, Insightful)
Paying wages. That's the problem AI is designed to solve. It is not a consumer product it is capital that will be used to replace you.
And remember they do not need to replace all of us. Doing something like 15 to 25% would completely hollow out consumer spending which is already under threat because massive income inequality means that 80% of our consumer spending comes from baby boomers and those people have about 10 years left before they are pushing up daisies.
And they will not be leaving any inheritance to speak of. What they don't spend on RVs and morning mimosas is going to be eating up by collapsing healthcare systems.
The system of capitalism is being dismantled. It's not breaking down it's being broken down. And if you are under 65 you are going to experience that process. And if you have less than 100 million in your bank account it's not going to be fun.
Re: (Score:3)
Solving the problem of paying wages is just another way of saying increasing efficiency, which has been the goal of almost every technology and management practice forever.
And people concerned with equality should be delighted if there are meager inheritances, or even if they were simply outlawed. Inheritances are very illiberal. Inheritance is the foundation of a class-based society. Inheritances are also fly in the face of conservative principles, since they in no way reflect merit nor market forces.
Almost thought you were serious (Score:2)
Until the comment about equality. You need to work on your bait. When it's too obvious you just come off like an idiot.
I do sense a little desperation. A little bit of cope. Something is happening that you know is going to hurt you and your worldview isn't equipped to deal with it.
Re: (Score:2)
I made specific points and your reply did not.
As for my worldview, you interpret posts the same way you interpret the news, exaggerating everything and extrapolating it to absurdity to make yourself upset or say something unreasonable. If you have inferred I was ever an extremist, you were wrong.
Re: (Score:1)
Oh good I found a bot. Good luck training your llm here whoever you are.
spin (Score:4, Insightful)
This is how you try to spin the fact that you are having layoffs into a positive.
Re: (Score:2)
No, Amazon specifically said their layoffs are not due to AI.
> Amazon spokesperson said the job cuts werenâ(TM)t a result of using AI, and pointed toward a message in October from Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology, who said they were part of the companyâ(TM)s effort at âoereducing bureaucracy, removing layers, and shifting resources to ensure weâ(TM)re investing in our biggest bets.â
But reporter would like to have a story about AI job loss, so t
And the stupid doubles down (Score:4, Interesting)
I find it totally fascinating how determinedly these "decision makers" try to ignore that LLMs cannot deliver anything but a tiny fraction of the claims made about them.
Groupthink, FOMO, plain old stupid, all intensely at work.
In other news, LLMs and generative AI lose potential application scenarios that would make operating them worthwhile left and right. Apparently different art communities see it as fraud if you use generative AI and not declare that. And if you declare, nobody wants your stuff anymore. Nice!
Re: (Score:2)
I partially agree with you, but it depends heavily on the task. In certain kind of work AI really helps you, in other kind of work it just waster your time. Work where finding the answer is hard (but not too hard), but validating it is easy and fast, AI works quite well.
I think that the problem is that quite many try to use AI for work where AI is extremely bad at. E.g. I would not use AI to write production code, because it is much harder to validate and fix code than write it yourself, but I could use AI
Re: (Score:2)
So, what is your prediction? It sounds like you think Amazon is going to fire thousands of people in hopes that AI will eventually replace their roles, and then say, "whoops, it doesn't work, we're screwed," and the packages will stop flowing. Is that your prediction?
Paywall (Score:2)
Anybody have a way to read the blomberg article?
Re: (Score:3)
[1]https://archive.ph/bSLWx [archive.ph]
[1] https://archive.ph/bSLWx
Re: (Score:2)
thanks
claiming it won't work (Score:2)
I see people here preaching doom, gloom, and failures but the fact is that AI is already working successfully at Amazon;
'companies will become more receptive when they see AI agents deliver material efficiency gains, “that’s when it is worth it to go make these changes.”
To support its case, Amazon points to internal software development, where it has deployed agentic systems across tens of thousands of engineers. These agents triage outages, propose fixes and handle the tedious operational
Sorry! (Score:2)
My hammer and screw driver are not co-workers or members of the team.
If you make the KoolAid (Score:5, Insightful)
... you have to drink the KoolAid.
Will his co-CEO AI Teammate take his job?
Will Amazon's Teammates effectively infect the other AI Teammates to recommend Amazon's products, delivered by robots, for gear made by robots, to robot purchasers?
Will all the AI and robotry be able to form a new society without those pesky humans-- now unemployed? We wait with baited breath for our new AI overlords.
Re:If you make the KoolAid (Score:5, Funny)
> Will all the AI and robotry be able to form a new society without those pesky humans-- now unemployed? We wait with baited breath for our new AI overlords.
We'll make great pets
Re:If you make the KoolAid (Score:4, Insightful)
My prediction is that all this "AI Agent" stuff will be dead within at most 2 years due to spectacular failures. They already have created really easy to use attack paths on people's systems and data several times now and they cannot really secure them.