Amazon cut jobs in its artificial general intelligence unit. The same unit that released Nova. The same unit working on silicon and quantum computing. The same unit that was supposed to make a machine smarter than humans.
They couldn't keep everyone on payroll while chasing the dream of digital consciousness. Budget constraints hit the people building the thing that's supposed to solve budget constraints. That's called irony in literature and "Tuesday" in tech.
Nova launched. People got fired. These two facts are not unrelated. You ship the product then you dump the expensive humans who shipped it. Standard play. Jeff Bezos didn't become a cowboy hat guy by paying people to sit around after they've already built the thing.
The AGI unit also works on quantum computing. Quantum computing is the technology that's been five years away for thirty years. Perfect place to trim headcount. Nobody can prove you're behind schedule when the schedule exists in multiple states simultaneously until observed.
Retail traders saw this headline and bought Amazon calls. They read "AGI unit" and "Nova" and "quantum" and their brains flooded with dopamine. They missed the part where Amazon is cutting costs in the division that's supposed to print infinite money. That's like seeing a divorce lawyer fire his own divorce lawyer.
The people who got laid off were working on artificial general intelligence. Their job was to create something smarter than themselves. They succeeded in creating something smart enough to realize it didn't need them anymore.
Photo by Rubaitul Azad on Unsplash
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