> If I have a team of 20, making a lot of money, but I think I can do the exact same job with 15 because of AI productivity gains, should I keep the other 5 employed for the vibes?

yes, because, (a) you would be an amoral company otherwise and (b) the productivity and work quality of those remaining 15 will plummet if you don't and AI won't save you in the end: you'll build faster and cheaper, but the quality of your products will enter a downward spiral it will be hard or impossible to exit from.

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RivieraKid an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Why amoral? If a an employee costs the company more than they make, it means the owner of the company is essentially donating his money to the employee. Is it amoral to not do that? What if the owner wants to donate the money to cancer research instead?

	▲	panta an hour ago \| parent [-]
		To expand on this, a company’s purpose should go beyond simply generating profit for its owners, imho; among other things, it should also include a duty of care toward its employees. Society instills a strong work ethic in us from childhood, teaching us that contributing to the greater good is our individual duty. Before the plague of neoliberalism, there was an expectation that companies would have a positive impact on society, too. Nothing, except greed, forbids to return to those values.

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redwall_hp an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Companies should also be legally barred from hiring for three years if they engage in layoffs. Mergers should also be off the table for the same period.

It's deleterious to the economy. As the recent Microsoft game studio apocalypse shows, mergers are also extremely deleterious. It would be better to have a dozen game studios employing people and competing rather than one shit company cutting expenses and reducing products going to market.