If you have just seen the "big layoff news" that has affected the entire technology circle recently: Amazon slashed 16,000 employees, Block (formerly Square) laid off nearly half of its workforce, Atlassian streamlined 10% of its employees, and Meta is said to be planning a new round of large-scale layoffs... And behind all of this, there is almost the same reason -AI.
At a time when technology workers are shivering and hugging each other for warmth, OpenAI’s CEO and the most popular man in Silicon Valley at the moment, Sam Altman, suddenly decided to take a "warmth route" on the X social platform.
result? Not surprisingly, he flipped over, and with a bang.
A thank-you speech like an "old-fashioned dial-up phone"
On Tuesday this week, Altman posted this affectionately on X:
"I'm so grateful for the people who write incredibly complex software, character-by-character. It's hard to remember how much effort that took. Thank you for getting us to where we are today."
Doesn’t it sound touching? A technology tycoon paid tribute to the older generation of programmers.
But the problem is that these sweet words seem particularly harsh in the current context. It was Altman's company that led the wave of AI craze that is now being used by major companies as the perfect excuse to lay off developers and cut junior programmer positions.
What was once a computer science dream has turned into a nightmare, and the saying “programming equals prosperity” has officially been shattered. The New York Times article shows that according to a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate for recent graduates majoring in computer science in the United States is as high as 6.1% to 7.5%, which is more than twice the unemployment rate for graduates majoring in biology and art history.
What’s even more ridiculous is that OpenAI’s super model was trained using the massive code typed out “word by word” by these programmers in the old-school way.
In the words of netizens, the subtext of Altman’s words seemed to say:The virtuosity that was truly elusive for developers is now like the old dial phone—nostalgic, but outdated and useless.
Grand Prize in the Comment Area: Internet People’s Top Weird Things
Faced with this statement of "picking up the bowl to eat, putting down the chopsticks and smashing the pot", netizens on X instantly exploded. While some expressed their anger directly:"You're welcome. It's nice to know our reward is being taken away from our jobs."
But more Internet fun people choose the way they are best at:Make fun of.
In order to let everyone feel the tragedy of the scene, I randomly "screenshoted" some high praise replies from thousands of comments on X:
[Workers Breaking Defense Team]netizen@lonelyguyse1Tears of the times were left behind: "It's so true... When I installed Vim for the first time, it took me a full hour to figure out how to exit without an internet connection."
However, some netizens immediately sent hellish blessings:
"Dear developers, you will lose your jobs forever and be forced to dig coal in the coal mines. But you can rest easy knowing that Sam Altman is grateful to you. ❤️"
[See through the essential group of capitalists]netizen@theliamnissanA precise translation of Altman’s subtext:
"Thank you for your work. Now it's mine."
another netizen@shahyn_kamaliThen an excellent business opportunity was discovered:
“A billion-dollar app idea: develop an AI that reads billionaires’ tweets before they post them, and then reminds them, ‘This sentence makes you appear extremely ignorant of the suffering of the people. Are you sure you want to post it?’”
【Hell Joke Group】Someone commented on this post:"This is Sam's eulogy for software engineers."Someone else said:"It reads like what the Mayans would say to a human sacrifice before it began."
Another netizen featured a "reverse thank you":
"I am very grateful for all the AI work done by OpenAI, because this way I can use China’s open source AI models for free."
Apart from the jokes, what is lost behind the AI’s wild run?
Of course, among the memes and jokes, there is also some cold thinking from a professional perspective. This is also the core of this "group ridicule incident" that deserves our most attention.
netizen@NyxCyphersGave a very hard-core and profound evaluation:
"You deserve the gratitude. But the disturbing part is this: that 'word-for-word' discipline that produces code that humans can audit line by line. Today's large-scale AI-generated code obliterates this."We are trading craftsman-level understanding for (development) speed, but no one has calculated what we have lost."
This may be the underlying reason for the public outrage: not only the lack of apology to those whose data, articles and code were stolen (as netizens@EnmiloXquestion), it is even more because the technological boom is destroying a controllable engineering culture that humans can fully master.
Interestingly, there was also a huge "cyber rights protection army" mixed into the comment area of this overturning scene. A large number of users started using it#keep4oand#BringBack4olabel.
netizen@Aclle12Angry message: "Don't just thank the past, but kill the future we really love. It was 4o that made OpenAI what it is today, give it back to us!"
Another netizen said:I'm extremely grateful#GPT4o, it’s the ability to listen with emotional intelligence – when most people still seem afraid to listen to themselves. How I long for a world filled with compassion and humanity.
another netizen@langrisser4oAlso struck by the irony: “Showing such deep appreciation for the engineers who write the code has no recognition for the millions of everyday users who test, iterate, provide feedback, and help popularize these models.”
From the perspective of technology development, Altman may indeed be lamenting the vicissitudes of technology iteration from the bottom of his heart; but from the perspective of an industry practitioner, in this grand "graduation season" dominated by AI, the boss's feelings are somewhat like "crocodile tears".
In this era when programmers are using AI to assist in writing code, they are also worried about whether they will be replaced by AI tomorrow. Perhaps only the soulful question from a netizen best represents everyone’s voice:
“You’re trying so hard to replace all of us, why on earth would anyone like this post?”