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The Machine Didn't Sign The Layoff · Connor with Honor: AI, Real Estate and Real Life

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The machine didn't sign the layoff.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: A person did.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And right now, a lot of people are hiding behind the machine.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: In my own line of work, work in the police department, we never booked the crowbar.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: We booked the guy holding it.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: The crowbar didn't decide to go through the back door.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: A person did.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hold on to one word for me.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Signature.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'll come back to it.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now this year more than a hundred thousand announced job cuts in this country have been blamed on artificial intelligence.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Some of that is real.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: AI is taking over real tasks.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a name now for the rest of it.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: AI washing.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: When a company cuts people to save money or because business is slow, tells everybody AI did it.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Analysts at Dutch Bank called it AI redundancy washing.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Even the CEO of OpenAI said there is some AI washing going on.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the seller who says my market made me drop my price.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, sometimes the market really did turn.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the seller just needed to move.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, the market takes the blame.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the decision was theirs, ultimately.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: But that blame on a legal form and it disappears.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: In March of 2025, New York added a checkbox to the state's layoff notice.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is this layoff because of new technology, including AI?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, over the next year, more than 160 companies filed layoff notices in New York, and not one of them checked that box.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So on the press release, AI did it.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: On the government form, nobody did it.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Same companies, same layoffs.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: AI gets the blame when it makes the stock look smart and disappears when it might come with a bill.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's the scary robot story.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: You hear it every day.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: AI's going to wake up, AI's going to come after us, AI might have feelings.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, nobody knows if any of that's true.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Not the labs, not the scientists, definitely not me.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the big labs even runs a research program on whether it's AI deserves moral consideration because they say they don't know.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's fine.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the question matters someday, but there's a question we can answer today.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do the people losing their jobs have feelings?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely yes.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Whether or not the machine has feelings, the people losing their jobs definitely do.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: The labs go to Washington for rules on their own products.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Some people say that's real concern.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Some people say it's building a moat.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Even the White House's own AI advisor has accused one of the labs of using fear to shape the rules.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: The lab denies it.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like a big builder asking the city for a stricter building code after the tract is already finished.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: The code might really make the home safer, but it also makes it a lot harder for the next small builder to get started.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Both things can be true at the same time, but don't let any of it distract you from the main thing.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: The robot story, the feeling story, the rule story.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Every one of those stories puts a spotlight on the machine.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And while everybody's looking at the machine, nobody's looking at who's holding it.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: AI is a hammer.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: A hammer doesn't decide where to swing.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody aims it.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And right now it's being aimed by the people at the top, at people on the ground floor.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now back to that word signature.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Every layoff has a signature on it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: A real person or real name signs it.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the next piece of the transition moonshot that I want to build.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: If a company tells Wall Street how much AI save them, they can tell Main Street who it costs.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Same number, same day, signed.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: The machine didn't sign the layoff.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So let's stop letting the people who did hide behind it.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now tell me in the comments have you been told AI took your job or a friend's job?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do you believe it?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm building this plan right here on the show, one piece at a time.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Come build it with me.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Connor with Honor.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Over and out.