Businesses are incentivized to say it’s because of AI because it makes them look better. So not saying that when actually asked by a government entity is meaningful.

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catigula 2 days ago | parent [-]

How does firing people resultant of the most disliked and unpopular technology on the planet, and avoiding marking it off on an obvious entry-point into regulatory burden "make them look better"?

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burnt-resistor 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Because it sounds better than saying "we're firing people to suppress wages and make even more absurd profits. oh, and we invested a collective $1.4T as an industry so far in AI but can't find a path to profitability".

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angoragoats 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Anecdotally, we (humans) appear to be more accepting and less critical of companies giving AI-related layoff excuses, vs. perhaps telling a more truthful story like "we are losing money and are scrambling to reach profitability" or "we'd like to make the stock price go up."

Though I do agree there are a vocal group of people that are loudly outspoken about AI. I would guess that those people are a minority of the total population though, and tend to skew either techy or geographically local to areas hardest hit by data center build-out.

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catigula 2 days ago | parent [-]

No, the majority of the population is hostile to AI. This has been surveyed time and time again. I definitely disagree with your premise.

	▲	protonbob 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The majority of shareholders (not retail 401k) are not as hostile at all.
	▲	angoragoats 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		That may be true and I'm absolutely unfamiliar with the data, so I'll take you at your word. Regardless, whether or not the majority of people are hostile to AI was not my main point. My point was that regardless of the public sentiment about AI, it seems that the general public is more accepting (or perhaps forgiving) of a CEO saying "We are laying off people because of AI" than, for example, "We are laying off people to save money and preserve shareholder value." (I am paraphrasing in both of these cases; obviously a real statement would be more obfuscated in corporate-speak in either case). That seems odd to me, _especially_ if the majority of the public is hostile to AI.