Comment: How mass AI automation is resulting in silent firing

Has your job been feeling increasingly frustrating lately? Have you noticed things like excessive meetings booked into your calendar, unhelpful feedback coming from your manager, or a general coldness from the executive team? Well, I hate to break it to you but… you might be getting silently fired. A subtle, less publicised cousin to layoffs, silent firing is a new and disturbing trend that has emerged thanks to the rapid expansion of AI and lack of policies in place to mitigate its damaging effects.

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Silent firing is when companies make an employee's job more challenging in hopes that the employee will just quit, instead of forcing the company to fire them. Where previously this tactic would be primarily used to get rid of a troublesome employee, it’s now being used to eliminate people, even large groups of people, that are no longer deemed needed by companies because AI technology can perform their job. 

Silent firing is becoming more widespread: an unsettling and unethical trend and consequence of the rise in AI innovation. The motivation of course comes down to money, and not just saving money by having AI replace the cost of an employee. If an employee quits, companies do not have to pay for unemployment benefits and the often steep costs of providing a severance package to tenured and well compensated employees.

It seems automation is right around the corner for many more companies. Google just stated that 25% of their code is generated by AI. Google has some of the most talented coders in the world -  if their jobs are in danger, how many simpler tasks could be automated? Not to mention OpenAI just released its Strawberry model said to be capable of “reasoning.” Or said differently by them “models that have been trained to answer more complex questions, faster than a human can.”

The Silent Firing Handbook

This tactic is not a matter of culture or performance, it is about companies balancing their high spending and the costs associated with implementing new AI technologies. With high upfront costs, ROI to be realised over the longer term, and following the spirit of Moore’s Law, any assets you create will rapidly depreciate in value – companies have a huge stake in the success of implementing AI technologies. Silent firing facilitates companies, unethically of course, to free up space for AI-driven cost savings; thus, justifying the high capital expenditures necessary through the reduction of their workforce. From a company’s perspective, the goal is to cultivate challenges that lead to voluntary departures, ideally without severance, unemployment benefits or bad press.

If you need an example, look no further than your Prime account. Amazon is currently implementing a back-to-office mandate across the nation. Despite 90% dissatisfaction from employees – 73% of them considering leaving the job – Amazon intends to uphold this decision. 

Did one of the smartest data driven companies forget how to use data? Did they forget that according to Global Workplace Analytics, 65% of employers report that remote work has increased productivity, and that 95% of employers reported that remote work has increased retention?

Why would they push such an unpopular policy without any evidence that it will help efficiency or culture? I’d say they’ve mastered the art of silent firing.

The Pressure to Perform

The current pace of AI innovation and technological advancement is unprecedented. Never before has this been an issue in the same way it is now: a thriving global company can quickly become obsolete and unprofitable in the face of rapid innovation, if they don’t keep up and learn to quickly adapt. The pace of AI advancement and the speed at which it must be incorporated could not be anticipated even 5 years ago, so it definitely wasn’t factored into company budgets. This has forced companies to find money where it doesn’t exist, other than from company headcount. Since there is the notion that by implementing tech certain jobs will no longer be necessary, this has fueled the fire of workforce reductions, even though that mentality is very shortsighted. While some organizations manage to strike a balance, others are looking mainly at cost savings and profits, with large-scale employee reductions being the unintended consequence of rapid innovation. 

While it's necessary for people to function harmoniously alongside rapid technological innovation, companies are struggling to find the right balance. Silent firing has become a troubling part of this trend, raising serious ethical concerns, and often diminishing morale and confidence in companies as a whole. While automation is reshaping the job market and will eliminate certain jobs completely, employers will have to learn to strike a balance between people and automation. Companies striking the right balance now are best poised to succeed in the long term. Companies that aren’t may find themselves with the exact problems they were trying to prevent with silent firing to begin with.

George Kailas is CEO at Prospero.Ai