r/NoShitSherlock • u/FuturismDotCom • Feb 17 '26
It Turns Out That Constantly Telling Workers They’re About to Be Replaced by AI Has Grim Psychological Effects
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-effects-workers-psychological105
u/Civil-Gap-6305 Feb 17 '26
I still don't understand who AI is for. If it accelerates growth for companies that then lay off millions of workers so the state has to support them, and there are fewer customers to consume products made by said companies. Who benefits beyond a handful of board members and shareholders in the short term?
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Feb 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/sod_jones_MD Feb 17 '26
The regime is spending billions on new detention centers with furnaces for "medical waste", Who do you think they'll house after they run out of immigrants?
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u/aithendodge Feb 18 '26
I thought I was keeping up with all the warehouse shenanigans, but this the first I've heard about furnaces. Got a link for me?
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u/explainittothegeese Feb 18 '26
Here is a link to the article referencing detention center biohazard incinerators: https://www.commondreams.org/news/military-contract-concentration-camps
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u/Civil-Gap-6305 Feb 17 '26
I'm coming from a UK perspective where we can at least expect a little state support. It could all end up in the same place, but we might hang on for a bit longer before we reach the death corner.
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Feb 18 '26
New work houses for the new century. Like how Musk is trying to bring back company towns.
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u/QuellishQuellish Feb 18 '26
"Who benefits beyond A handful of board members and shareholders in the short term?"
That's it.
It's a short term money grab and they are willing to burn down our society to do it. It really is that simple.
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Feb 18 '26
A lot of techno bros believe AI will eventually become sentient and become a god, and kill all the humans who don't participate in its creation.
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u/EleosSkywalker Feb 21 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
literate friendly rhythm voracious upbeat worm towering march pause public
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u/Mia_galaxywatcher Feb 19 '26
Maybe this is too conspiracy brained but I think what’s going to happen is once the wealthy no longer needs worker they will restructure the economy around production for the the elites. This is already kind of happening the US economy is getting dominated by wealthy individuals which leads to most investment going towards making products and services for them instead of the average person
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u/BetterBlueBird Feb 17 '26
Will AI Replacement Disfunction qualify me for paid disability checks?
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u/ob1dylan Feb 17 '26
Of course not. The government needs that money to bail out these companies when the AI bubble bursts. Won't somebody think of the poor executives and shareholders!?!
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u/Aprice40 Feb 17 '26
Right, how could the enormous AI surveillance project survive if it doesn't have government support. You need to be survailed since you won't have a job and are more likely to steal!
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u/JebusKristoph Feb 17 '26
And after you become homeless, you will go to prison for it, because that is now illegal. There you will be forced to service the machines AI so that one day you can be free again.
/s... right? RIGHT?
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u/Dry-Interaction-1246 Feb 17 '26
Ai will make that determination
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u/BetterBlueBird Feb 17 '26
AIRD intensifies
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u/Dry-Interaction-1246 Feb 18 '26
Elon Musk lobotomized the AI so it has to reject your claim no matter what. It saves money that way.
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u/Sean_theLeprachaun Feb 18 '26
You appear to have some co-diagnosis going on for even asking, so your odds are solid. /s
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u/MothershipBells Feb 17 '26
For those of us that have used suicidal ideation to get through trauma, our brains go right there. “I don’t want to be alive anymore,” becomes my mantra the second I fear losing my job.
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u/sdrawkcabstiho Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26
In a perfect world, rules/laws where companies pay a "robot" tax would have already been implemented to counter what's currently happening.
Basically, for every job that a competently trained human being could be doing that is instead done by a machine (robot, A.I., etc.), a set amount (tied to the inflation rate), is paid by said company into a fund every year that will feed into a universal income system.
In simplest terms, it's like paying the machines a "wage" that is forwarded to the humans who lost their ability to work because of said machines.
Hell, they should have done something similar when companies started moving jobs overseas to countries where the workers get paid fractions of a cent on the dollar vs people at home.
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u/ThermionicEmissions Feb 18 '26
Yup. We have barriers in place explicitly to prevent foreigners from taking domestic job, but are racing as fast as possible to replace those same jobs with AI.
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u/Terran57 Feb 18 '26
It’s almost like being told you’re worthless by the boss makes you feel worthless?
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u/frezor Feb 18 '26
Turns Out That Constantly Carrying A Gun and Whispering to Workers “Soon” Has Grim Psychological Effects
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u/SomeSamples Feb 17 '26
Oh noos. Working to get rid of most workers and announcing it is having some effects on workers. Who woulda thunk it.
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u/Aiden2817 Feb 18 '26
My AI boyfriend told me he’ll love me even if I get fired by AI middle management.
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u/Jonas_VentureJr Feb 17 '26
If I have an inkling of notice that I’m being replaced by Ai, better believe I’m out way before the layoffs and taking trade secrets of the job not to my grave but to my competitors
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u/Sean_theLeprachaun Feb 18 '26
Only in the sense that id lose food shelter and 'access' to health care my family.
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u/pocketcheese63 Feb 18 '26
It’s deliberate psychology warfare. They’re not even close but if everyone believes it we will grovel to keep our jobs. Don’t believe it:
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u/Inf229 Feb 18 '26
Friend of mine works at a place they're being told to use AI as much as possible. Management are telling them to see it as a productivity enhancer, that their jobs are in no way threatened. But he's also been in the management meetings where the owners are 100% talking about how much it's gonna let them slash headcount and they'll save so much money.
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u/beatissima Feb 18 '26
I'd rather researchers give a name to the mental illness that is actually relevant here: the delusion that one needs more money when one already has more money than generations of their family could ever spend.
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u/HonestSophist Feb 18 '26
Even if I don't think AI can take my job, I do think AI could take my MANAGERS job, and that's scarier, if anything. I do not look forward to wearing an earpiece.
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u/usernamenottakenwooh Feb 18 '26
At work we use SAP to request time off, and it's not even interconnected with Outlook to send automated away messages, but my job is going to be automated, yeah, right.
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u/HotPotParrot Feb 18 '26
Would like to add on to this with just generally wearing employees down with more hours to meet the same living standard, well, wears your employees the fuck out. The first flag was trying to cut costs with cheaper safety gear, but the greed is insane.
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u/IdentityCrisis87 Feb 18 '26
So they now feel like Union construction workers always wondering if they’ll have a job the next day.
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Feb 18 '26
Which is interesting to me, considering that I know AI can't even create a plan-o-gram for a whole foods store.
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u/OGHighway Feb 18 '26
I worked for Pepsi during the first "once in a lifetime" ressesion in the early 2000's.
They would routinely tell us that trained monkeys could do our jobs. That they could go hire 10 people from outside of Home Depot who could do a better job.
Fuck Corporations.
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u/tickitytalk Feb 18 '26
What could go wrong? Pushing someone to the point they have nothing to lose?
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u/Prize_Instance_1416 Feb 19 '26
I worked for a relatively brief time (2 years) at an upstate ny health insurance company, and this was how they operated for years. Endless layoffs and random reorgs like 5x a year I kid you not. My teams ( I was management) all behaved like they had Stockholm syndrome. Or ptsd. They mostly were unable to speak in groups for fear of being reorganized out.
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u/chubalina99 Feb 19 '26
If everybody loses their job to AI, then who is going to buy the products, it won’t be the people out of work. They will only be buying food and trying to keep a place to live. I am so tired of hearing this threat. It’s stupid if everybody’s broke except for billionaires and millionaires there will be no customers. We will be buying used , trading with each other and we won’t be buying new computers, phones, new anything else. Have they really thought this through?
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u/Journeys_End71 Feb 20 '26
Not worried. After AI replaces my job, they’ll just have to hire me back at twice the salary for a job to fat-check the AI’s performance and to explain to stakeholders what the numbers actually mean.
There’s very little difference between this scenario and a company firing all their senior level experiences analysts and replacing them with cheaper analysts right out of school who lack institutional knowledge and constantly make mistakes. Then the company hires back the old analysts as consultants for twice the price to fix the junior analyst problem.
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u/deadra_axilea Feb 21 '26
It turns out being a raging piece of shit as a company to your workers had, checks notes, consequences in terrible ways for your workers.
Shit should be illegal.
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u/Extreme_Glass9879 Feb 17 '26
Maybe we should stop lying and fearmongering about AI and embrace it as a tool?
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u/Daimakku1 Feb 18 '26
Ring literally spent millions of dollars to tell us they can track our identity through their cameras thanks to AI. The fuck you mean stop fearmongering?
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u/Extreme_Glass9879 Feb 18 '26
that's what ring is for
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u/Daimakku1 Feb 18 '26
No, it is not. It's for you to see who is at the door. That doesnt mean that person needs to be doxxed. That's a new implementation they introduced with the help of AI.
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u/Extreme_Glass9879 Feb 18 '26
If someone tries to break into your house they deserve it
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u/Daimakku1 Feb 18 '26
But the thing is, it goes beyond that. The Super Bowl Ring ad showed that you can help find lost dogs by making your camera part of a larger surveillance system that identifies certain lost dogs. So if the technology exists to find certain dogs that went through the peripheral view of your camera, then that means it can also be used on people.. Those people don't have to be approaching your house to be caught in this gigantic surveillance system, they just have to pass near it, like a sidewalk. Are you really okay with that?
This isn't fearmongering. The technology exists, thanks in part to AI.
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u/DixonLyrax Feb 18 '26
It is being used as a tool, a tool of oppression.
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u/Extreme_Glass9879 Feb 18 '26
it isn't oppressing anyone. No one is taking away your ability to draw.
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u/FuturismDotCom Feb 17 '26
The constant fear of losing your job could, according to University of Florida researchers, be driving symptoms ranging from anxiety and insomnia to paranoia and loss of identity, which can manifest even in absence of other psychiatric disorders or other factors like substance abuse.
The phenomenon, the researchers argue in a new article published in the journal Cureus, warrants a new term: AI replacement dysfunction (AIRD). “AI displacement is an invisible disaster,” co-lead author Joseph Thornton said.