🤖 "Do 3-4x More, Don't Fire People" — Google DeepMind CEO Takes on AI Layoffs

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, has pushed back against the wave of tech layoffs being blamed on AI adoption. His argument comes down to one number:
"If engineers are becoming 3-4 times more productive, then we just want to do 3-4 times more stuff — not cut people."
📊 The backdrop. Over the past six months, Amazon (~30,000 corporate roles), Block (40% of staff), Salesforce, Snap, Oracle, and Microsoft have all tied layoffs — at least partially — to AI. Meanwhile, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly predicts AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs.

🗣️ Hassabis isn't having it:
"I have no idea why people are saying this with such confidence. Maybe there's an ulterior motive — to raise money or something."
🔬 Google walks the talk. Sundar Pichai recently revealed 75% of new code at Google is now written by AI (up from 25% in late 2024). Yet instead of layoffs, Hassabis sees opportunity:
"I have a million ideas — from drug discovery in labs to game design. I'd happily take those freed-up engineers and deploy them on those kinds of problems."
💡 His core critique: laying people off because of AI is "a lack of imagination and a misunderstanding of what's actually going to happen."