About whether tech layoffs are driven by hopes that AI will replace employees.
Has this happened?
Yes 32 (25%)Not sure 25 (20%)No 69 (55%)
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?
About whether tech layoffs are driven by hopes that AI will replace employees.
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
I believe the intoxicating idea that companies will not need employees soon is driving more of this than we think. Once the hype wears off things may normalize again.
I say this as a heavy chat GPT user. I really love it but not nearly like sending and email to a senior engineer: “please make X” - which then turns into the senior engineer scheduling meetings with the required teams / individuals - navigating the technical and (unfortunate) political issues, coming up with a design and implementing it - getting things done in other words. I don’t know what future versions of GPT will look like but the current one is light years away from having that level of capability.
Even a simpler task like fixing a bug cannot remotely be handled by ChatGPT.
It is almost like LLMs are a new dimension - we used to have X and Y, now we also have Z. Yet, we are thinking that this is just more “Y”.