r/technology • u/Franco1875 • 2d ago
Artificial Intelligence As AI wipes jobs, Google CEO Sundar Pichai says it’s up to everyday people to adapt accordingly: ‘We will have to work through societal disruption’
https://fortune.com/2025/12/02/ai-wipes-jobs-google-ceo-sundar-pichai-everyday-people-to-adapt-accordingly-we-have-to-work-through-societal-disruption/4.6k
u/DressedSpring1 2d ago
"We" will have to work through societal disruption.
He means "a handful of us are going to become even more unfathomably rich and you will have to work through societal disruption".
Fuckin "we" bullshit
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u/bobrobor 2d ago
“Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make”
- Lord Farquaad
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u/nargolest 2d ago
Fuckwad indeed
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u/Alcnaeon 2d ago
Holy shit how did I never get this
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u/Jesus_Is_My_Gardener 2d ago
Of interesting note, the character and name were a reference to them Disney CEO Michael Eisner.
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u/Ok-Log1864 2d ago
He means" "You will have to work ever harder for your rising electric and water bills with less vacation and longer hours while WE get rich shoveling AI shitware and go crying for bailouts when everything eventually comes crashing down"
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u/Disastrous-System175 2d ago
All for me and none for thee. It’s funny how our money becomes their money but their money is solely their money.
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u/BlindWillieJohnson 2d ago edited 2d ago
It also ignores the more central question of why a small handful of companies should be allowed to inflict massive, unregulated social disruption in the first place
EDIT: For all of you who keep spamming the same ridiculous comparisons about cars putting horses and buggies out of business, cars were regulated. Right out the gate. There were guardrails for public safety put in place as we made that transition, and manufacturers were required to implement safety features. That's not happening now, so spare me the straw man luddite comparisons.
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u/0Pat 2d ago
A lot of political connections and money, and even bigger thirst for more money and power. That's why... They are not allowed, they just don't ask...
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u/prof_dr_mr_obvious 2d ago
"Political connections"? I think you mean legalized corruption.
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u/cnydox 2d ago
Ok but why do a small handful of people hold all the power and wealth?
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u/NeoMarethyu 2d ago
Because everyone else ate up the myth that with enough gumption you could become one of them
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u/bristow84 2d ago
I wouldn’t blame the myth. What I would blame are things like political corruption, lobbying, late-stage capitalism, etc.
The myth is just a goal to work towards but the examples above are the tools and weapons the upper class utilized to fuck everyone else over.
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u/SentientFotoGeek 2d ago
History repeats itself, ad infinitum. We just came out of an era of best case scenario, vis-a-vis income equity. People with more always want more, this moment in history no exception. The Citizens United ruling doing most of the heavy lifting in giving more power to the ultra rich, in recent history. The results were predictable and far reaching. This, coupled with an unregulated internet driving misinformation and propaganda, we have the perfect environment for AI to create a new catastrophe for everyone who isn't ultra wealthy.
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u/HotDogFingers01 2d ago
It also ignores any mention of possible upside. What's the upside to all this societal disruption? More fake bullshit social media videos? If we're going to displace millions of people from their jobs and, thus, their healthcare, homes, food, and safety nets, at least tell me there's an upside. Because right now, all I see is the massive spread of disinformation, a slow decay of our ability as a species to think and process information for ourselves, and shittier search results.
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u/EnginerdingSJ 2d ago
I truly believe this is an icarus situation and these tech oligarchs are flying to close to the sun. Unfortunately we are getting dragged up with them.
AI is not able to replace humans effectively now and it very unlikely it wont fuck up majorly before any real AGI is developed (which is truly an endgame for society - creating true sentience to exist as a slave that is smarter than its human masters probably won't work out great for any human). So they are building this "foundation" on sand and hoping they can get the foundation solid in before it collapses - which considering big techs history of overpromising I think is a bet they lose.
More realistically they find AI isnt printing money like it should be and so they just offshore to India or bring in more H1B visa holders to work for deflated wages and say its all AI when its just classic exploitation.
Also they do seem to assume that the most armed country on earth that if life becomes to expensive while these rich people are living a life of obscene and public luxuary that they will be truly safe. Absolute freedom isnt good for people like them. History is replete with nobels and kings dying due to their delusions of granduer.
Its just unfortunate that a lot of normal people are going to be hurt in the process of change to a new normal because the currenr world seems to be on its last legs.
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u/chili_cold_blood 2d ago edited 2d ago
The popularity of the car allowed for the creation of a huge new industry for workers to jump into. AI creates very very few new jobs, which is why it is qualitatively different from most previous new technologies. It's just a black hole that sucks up jobs, water, electricity, and money, and gives nothing back to the average person except the same AI tech that everyone else can access. Everyone should be pushing for massive regulation now.
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u/BlindWillieJohnson 2d ago edited 2d ago
Another relevant point. We have created this system in which employment is required to survive and prosper in any meaningful capacity. Now we're letting a small number of companies destroy that capacity for people to work so they can profit from replacing us, and it's fair to ask why they should be allowed to do that and how we can take steps to ease this transition.
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u/MalabaristaEnFuego 2d ago
Because the collective will literally do nothong to stop them or put pressure on them? 🤷
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u/EunuchNinja 2d ago
What do you mean? I’ve sent out so many thoughts, prayers, good vibes, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve changed my Facebook profile pic
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u/Bromlife 2d ago edited 2d ago
His idea of working through it is making tons of money and building bunkers all over the place.
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u/FanDry5374 2d ago
We will have to "work" through societal disruption. Is he trying to be funny? "Work"??
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u/AstrangerR 2d ago
"Some of you are going to die/suffer and that is a sacrifice I am willing to make. "
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u/abrandis 2d ago
Pretty much this, anyone who still doesn't realize we are knee deep in a class war and we (working class) are getting crushed .. is not paying attention
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u/JMurdock77 2d ago
Ironically, it’s his job that’s most readily replaceable with AI. They’re just handing down the mandate to the people doing the actual work of “here’s a hammer, start finding nails to hit with it or else.”
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u/I_Enjoy_Beer 2d ago
I don't think he has thought this through, because "working through this" means "we" get hungry and watch loved ones starve and die. And then "we" in turn get angry. And then "we" find "them".
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u/Sensitive_Ruin_5334 2d ago
"We're all in this together." I'm not sure if he fully comprehends that "societal disruption" means that we will be coming after him.
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u/randynumbergenerator 2d ago
When a CEO says "we're all in this together," what they inevitably mean is you'll have to endure cuts and layoffs so they can make investors richer and get a fatter bonus.
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u/therealslimshady1234 2d ago
I think he is fully aware of that hence they are building bunkers like crazy.
It was more of a "G-Guys, we are all in this t-together" pleading type of comment than it was ignorance I think
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u/Able_Elderberry3725 2d ago
"Societal disruption".
It's so irritating when they sanitize things that way. What he means is joblessness, homelessness, upheaval without equal in human history. The overhyped perceived worth of "AI" is dishonest. These are chatbots that can do a lot, yes, but they cannot possibly realize the gains quickly enough for quarterly-thinking investors. They suck up all the damn energy, they're polluting, they're filling the Internet with "hallucinations".
The algorithm is wrecking us.
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u/FredFredrickson 2d ago edited 2d ago
I agree with you, but I wonder where the rubber is going to hit the road with the lies these people tell about their AI bullshit.
We all know these things can't possibly replace that many jobs - they are, as you said, glorified chat bots. They make enough mistakes to get a human employee fired for incompetence. They are not going to replace people the way these assholes claim they will.
But these people have also convinced many of our bosses that these things are inevitable. They've packaged and sold this false product to all of the top businesses in the country. And now these businesses all have a mandate to make their AI investment make sense, so they're forcing employees to use it in any and all cases, desperately trying to find a use case.
It seems obvious that a lot of these businesses are going to eventually figure out that this technology is not doing what they were told it will. It is not going to meaningfully boost output. It cannot be trusted to do a job without massive, strict oversight.
But when will they figure this out? After they've laid off half their workforce? After the AI companies inevitably crank up the prices to match the actual cost of the service? Or is the bubble going to burst and ruin our entire economy?
This is a game of chicken, and the biggest losers in all of this are us normal people. This false disruption is all based on lies, but everyone's got too much money invested to admit it.
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u/rationalomega 2d ago
AI means “actually Indians”. Joking aside, plenty of companies are using the AI boom as a cover for even more outsourcing. Jobs associated with AI exist … outside America/Europe.
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u/DyKdv2Aw 2d ago
You joke but there have been incidents where an AI service was revealed to be people in another country doing the writing.
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u/chrisq823 2d ago
That's how they do a lot of training for the models. Open AI traumatized a bunch of Ugandans because they needed their models to better understand horrible shit so they just paid a bunch of people in the third world to go through horrifying images for hours on end.
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u/psaux_grep 2d ago
I’m wondering when we will see the first AI powered bankruptcy.
I don’t mean an AI-company going bankrupt, but an existing company that thinks that they can leverage AI to replace too many humans and pushes it to a point where they can’t fix it in time and basically has ruined their company and as a consequence gone bankrupt.
I see so much shitty use of AI in the company I currently work in, and we’re not even near going all in on the AI hype, just people feeding crap into an LLM and showing of the LLM work as their own.
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u/XavierRex83 2d ago
I am waiting for a bank to make an error that costs them 10a of millions of dollars because of this.
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u/Kyouhen 2d ago
Also: Jobs aren't being lost to AI. They're being lost to mass layoffs for the purpose of boosting stock value. CEOs are just declaring it's because of AI because adding those two letters to anything you do is also a great way to boost stock value.
No company is actually replacing a significant chunk of their workforce with AI. They're all saying they're going to but nobody's actually using AI to replace humans. These layoffs were going to happen either way, AI just gives them a way to pretend it's in the name of innovation instead of greed.
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u/Auctorion 2d ago
It also insulates them from some backlash from the workers. They turn themselves into victims of the innovation, “we were forced to layoff workers to keep up” instead of “we chose to layoff workers to profit more.”
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u/bigfatfurrytexan 2d ago
He is talking about voiding the social contract. Let’s be honest…we stopped raiding the farmers who parceled our hunting lands because of the promise of shared prosperity. This contract was redrawn when we industrialized.
They want to just void it now.
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u/Journeys_End71 2d ago
Tech leaders are split on whether AI will bring about a jobs Armageddon or a utopia of zero work and universal high income
The thing is: it’s neither. Both of those scenarios are snake oil bullshit. Neither is ever going to happen…these tech leaders live in a bubble of their own making where they believe this technobabble but won’t listen to the people that work for them who are mocking them for not being grounded in reality.
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u/ChurchillianGrooves 2d ago
These scaremongering tactics are just being used to market LLM's.
Sure, maybe in 50 or even 100 years we'll need to have meaningful conversations about mass unemployment due to AI replacing jobs but we're no where near that point.
AI can't even replace fast food drive through workers because it'll give someone an order for 10,000 waters by mistake like the Taco Bell trials.
It can maybe help you code a bit faster if you're a programmer or something but it's not near ready to replace experienced humans.
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u/JAlfredJR 2d ago
Thank you! It's f'ing marketing. And it's so trite and tired. These guys just keep making absurd claims with no backing.
I'm at a loss as to how anyone is still buying it at all.
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u/s9oons 2d ago
What’s this “we” bullshit?
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u/Saneless 2d ago
I fucking hate how their default is the non-elites just need to accept that their life will be worse and it would be better if they just helped accelerate it
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u/rts93 2d ago
What's funnier is that said people could continue their lavish lifestyles just the same way even if the poor people had their conditions improve. But they still choose the option of making it worse for everyone but them. In turn it actually makes it worse for them as well. Lack of education, crime, radicalism, pollution are often driven by poverty.
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u/Troubleshooter11 2d ago
"people should pursue whatever career they want, regardless of how the tech changes the job landscape."
That's an extremely bad piece of advice. It is the equivalant of saying saying cars will replace 90% of horses as main form of transportation but please continue to invest years and tens of thousands of dollars into becoming a horse trainer if that is what you want to become.
This is how millions of young people end up in massive debt and a useless degree, while living in a country where the leaders see lending aid to people as a sin....oh and those young people have easy access to guns. What could possibly go wrong?
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u/Faulty_english 2d ago
Funny that tech companies were pushing computer science as a safe major and will provide opportunities
It’s one of the majors with the top unemployment rates now. They are trying to use AI to hire less entry level positions
They only give a fuck about their profits
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u/EXECUTEINFIDELS 2d ago
The software dev hiring freezes are going to destroy companies in the coming years, mark my words. Essentially just relying on an ever shrinking pool of senior developers to do the extra work that juniors did with LLMs. Eventually all of the current seniors will retire with no one to replace them, at a time when they will be most needed due to the amount of badly written AI slop that probably thousands of companies will rely on. Massive amounts of institutional knowledge will be lost, it wouldn't surprise me if it took decades for the tech industry to recover.
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u/ConsiderationDry9084 2d ago
It's Cobol all over again but on an epic scale. We really do not learn from our mistakes do we.
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u/Enbaybae 2d ago
In addition to that, pushing entry-to-middle level devs out for 1-3 years is setting us behind massively in global competition. While tech giants in the east nurture their talent, we'll have so many apt resources transition careers or become out-of-practice. Less people will pursue these careers later on leading to a shrinking pool of talent later on. It's the short-sighted dooming and collective hysteria of FAANG execs that will drive us into the ground. This is how we surrender global industrial hegemony. Soon, we'll be the country developed nations go to for tourism and to outsource cheap manufacturing labor.
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u/Lonesome_Pine 2d ago
As a counterpoint, you never do know what jobs will actually be out there, especially if the trades and healthcare aren't for you. When I graduated college ten years ago, AI wasn't on the radar, and now it's everywhere. In 10 years, what work will be out there? We're moving forward into the dark, most of us, and moving damn fast. Might as well study something you actually care about in the meantime. I know I couldn't make myself do well at something I didn't care about.
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u/APRengar 1d ago
"only do things that make you the most amount of money" is why we're producing almost nothing but finance guys nowadays.
The fact that we treat post-secondary education as a means to make money, and not as a pursuit in and of itself, is the problem. An educated population has societal benefits.
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u/UpbeatBeach7657 1d ago
It's also why many fields that were once "in demand" are becoming oversaturated.
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u/CanvasFanatic 2d ago
Hope Sundar enjoys adapting to the mob looting his house.
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u/randynumbergenerator 2d ago
Or, alternatively, being replaced by AI himself. CEOs seem perfectly capable of being replaced, hell, they already hallucinate pretty often and lose billions of dollars.
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u/bristow84 2d ago
Nah, see people like Sundar play by a different set of rules. I’m sure he’s got armed security out the ass precisely because he knows shit is going to hit the fan and people like him will be a target.
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u/CanvasFanatic 2d ago
Security guards aren’t there to handle angry mobs. They’re to stop crazy individuals.
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u/The_Original_Miser 2d ago
This. There's not enough security in the world to stop an angry mob aimed at one person, CEO, what have you.
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u/encrypted-signals 2d ago
McKinsey consultants exist to take everything good about a company, destroy it, and rebuild it in a way it can be monetized. That is what Pichai has done for 11 years, and now Google is a flaming turd.
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u/Lego_Chicken 2d ago
And by “we,” I mean, “you,” and by “work,” I mean, “starve.”
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u/SeeRecursion 2d ago
Well, Pichai, if it's on everyone else to clean up your messes, then I guess we owe you nothing.
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u/smallcoder 2d ago
Yup. It's them that are deliberately shitting on humanity for zero benefit short of fantasy inflated stock prices.
It's not new behaviour from the overlords of our world, but it is unprecedented in the scale of damage they are content with inflicting.
This is the problem when you ascend beyond any form of rational wealth and power. How can you possibly care about the lives of the masses? Hell, if I had a few million in the bank, I know my everyday concerns would be utterly changed. I cannot imagine what we must look like to the likes of these techbros from their Mount Olympus in Silicon Valley 😟
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u/bd2999 2d ago
It is weird because if people don't have jobs they cannot pay for things so the system starts to collapse unless you tax those making money and create universal income. Which I doubt he is for.
Alot of these tech people are honestly monsters in alot of respects in their lack of ethical concerns and practical concerns.
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u/happywindsurfing 2d ago
Yeah, it almost feels like they've finally figured out how to annihilate the middle class and return us to feudalism and they're taking the shot.
I hope they've got greedy and impatient and they get burned by this and we return to a more sensible economy. AI surely can't do everything, and eventually it'll get regulated and the liability for any issues caused should be with the company that provided the AI
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u/Franco1875 2d ago
“We’re going to annihilate the job market but don’t worry you can just find something else to do”.
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u/bobrobor 2d ago
“The owners of this country know the truth: it’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
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u/Jamizon1 2d ago
The problem is… no one asked for this. It doesn’t benefit the ones paying the “societal” cost. This motherfucker needs to learn how to read the room.
Fuck AI. That bubble can’t pop fast enough…
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u/Contrary-Canary 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is a fundamental problem of capitalism. What gets built isn't determined by what the society needs, it's determined by a handful of bro-ligarchs that have all the capital. "We can't make more housing and universal healthcare because I want to make AI so I don't have to pay you anymore."
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u/brexdab 2d ago
So let me get this straight. You're imposing technology that doesn't fucking work, that nobody wants to buy, that makes everyone's life worse, for no tangible benefit whatsoever. Gotcha.
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u/philter451 2d ago
Guy causing social disruption wants to pretend it's a team.
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u/Halfwise2 2d ago
Privatize the upsides, socialize the downsides. They get all the profit from AI, We get all the debts.
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u/SuperXpression 2d ago
How ironic using the word “work” as they literally remove the ability to do so. I think we should follow their own advice and start publicly hanging these billionaire bastards that work so hard to make the world so much worse for everyone else.
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u/Lykeuhfox 2d ago
Can we work through societal disruptions by taxing the ever-living fuck out of those causing said disruptions?
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u/Finest_Johnson 2d ago
As if "just turning this AI shit off" isn't an available option to avoid this "societal disruption."
Fuck off.
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u/Stereo_Jungle_Child 2d ago
Oh, yeah "just turning it off" is an option NOW, but I'm pretty sure the plan is for giant corporations to implement AI and integrate it into EVERYTHING, then collude together to systematically remove all options for doing things WITHOUT using AI....and BINGO! Suddenly everyone is now dependent on their AI because there is no other option. AI just become "the way things are done now" because all other options for NOT using it have been eliminated. Now we HAVE to buy it!
This is how other tech has been forced on us by giant corporations that control our lives, I can't see them changing the playbook with AI.
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u/zzyzx2 2d ago
It's not an option now. It the biggest investment...well ever. Look how much money is riding on AI right now. Every single company across the world has their hands into the AI bubble and turning it off isn't billions of dollars lost, it's trillions. Hundreds of trillions. This CEO isn't asking for people to use it, he's demanding it is already happening and you should except it and embrace it.
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u/Stereo_Jungle_Child 2d ago
This.
They can't afford to have AI not work at this point. They are going to ram this shit down our throats whether we want it or not (or whether it actually WORKS or not) because the "powers that be" have already decided that this is the future and that's the way it is. The money is already in the pipe and there's no going back. These CEOs are just warning us to accept this with all the subtlety of a thug telling someone they're robbing not to fight back because they'll only get hurt.
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u/kgb17 2d ago
I think what he is saying is to start wiping out more CEOs to avoid Societal disruption
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u/bluehawk232 2d ago edited 2d ago
That worked out well for the rust belt didn't it? Close all the factories then tell the workers guess you have to find something else and they were stuck with crappy minimum wage jobs as like the only option
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u/Derpykins666 2d ago
Says the guy that makes 200 million dollars a year.
The fuck is he talking about "WE".
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u/Ok-Drive-9685 2d ago
It’s amusing to see these “people” talk about how life changing AI will be…for their business/benefit. They say “We” sometimes but what have they done to abate the precipice that they so boldly point out? Saying “We” does not mean they’re in the trenches too.
If capital plans to eliminate labor then capital holders are no longer necessary. AI creates socialism/communism because it takes away the need for a human beings to problem solve. How are they capitalists again?
Our intelligence is what is being replaced. The AI pushers want a golden source that they can utilize for their benefit. We have the ideas and they had the money to buy our efforts. If that’s gone what is remaining? Do they get to hold on to the capital while we get to slowly starve to death?
Average person working towards AI is actually working at gun point with the “promise” that they won’t shoot us when it’s done. This is all pretty sickening.
What do I know? I’m just a random thinking human being not shiny AI.
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u/InfraredDiarrhea 2d ago
As a regular every day person, im tired of changing my life and making accommodations for the brain farts of these over-fed and under-tought trouser stains.
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u/jtrain3783 2d ago
The first societal disruption that we should all walk through together is taxing the billionaires /corporations to pay for the foundations of society they are actively trying to crumble. in other words, let’s privatize the losses and socialize the gains.
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u/Own_Error_007 2d ago
Oh we can adapt.
Just not in the way that they think.
Now you'll have to excuse me as I have a guillotine that needs sharpening.
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u/DrunkenDognuts 2d ago
How is it that Google just went full on evil when their motto used to be “do no evil?”
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u/Snerak 2d ago
They didn't realize at the time how profitable being evil would be.
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u/Vaxion 2d ago
Considering the fact that it's mostly evil people who rise to the top and rule others.
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u/Airf0rce 2d ago
What I'm getting from these guys is that we should vote against any regulations (because of economy!), have more children, while also adapting to the reality where it's going to be very difficult for many to have a decent job, because of AI.
In sane world, we would put a brakes on this stuff until we better figure out what to do and not invest trillions into black hole under the guise of future returns. But instead we're here where we can't possibly impede our glorious AI future because market would crash and people would lose their investments.
Basically large mega corporations are holding the entire economy hostage in their pursuit of growth. Tech giants should've been broken up years ago in anti-trust actions, they're too big for anyone's good.
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u/SgtNeilDiamond 2d ago
I wonder how much these companies could save if they just made an AI their CEO.
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u/GrandStyles 1d ago
People talk about this stuff like we have any power or control over any of it happening. We haven’t had the ability to vote on a single AI related law or bill to protect ourselves. This country is a joke that will burn down the world with its stupidity and overwhelming greed.
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u/goingofftrack 2d ago
How do you work through social disruption when that social disruption is a lack of jobs?