We're not making this decision because we're in trouble. Our business is strong. Gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. But something has changed. We're already seeing that the intelligence tools we're creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company.
More than 1,000 Amazon employees have signed an open letter expressing serious concerns about AI development, saying that the company's all-costs justified, warp speed approach to the powerful technology will cause damage to democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth. The letter, published on Wednesday, was signed by the Amazon workers anonymously, and comes a month after Amazon announced mass layoff plans as it increases adoption of AI in its operations.
Worries about AI one day replacing human workers have intensified in recent years - and as it turns out, that future has already arrived. MIT just released a study that found that AI can already replace 11.7% of the US labor market. The study utilized a labor simulation tool called the Iceberg Index, which models 151 million US workers and measures how AI overlaps with skills in each occupation.
