Gov. Gavin Newsom to Sign Executive Order Aimed at A.I. Job Loss
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/technology/newsom-ai-executive-order-california.html
Gov. Gavin Newsom to Sign Executive Order Aimed at A.I. Job Loss
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/technology/newsom-ai-executive-order-california.html
25 Comments
The jobs are not lost due to AI. Companies are just AI-washing layoffs.
Dario Amodei, co-founder of the A.I. start-up Anthropic, has predicted that roughly half of white-collar jobs could disappear in the next five years. While other tech leaders disagree with Mr. Amodei’s predictions, nearly all say that the technology will replace humans in fields like communications, law and engineering in the near future.
We just need to make AI companies pay for every bit of IP they stole to train their theft machines.
Now sign an executive order protecting unionizing in the tech industry. Don’t be shy, Gavin. Sign it!
How bout erasing fuckerberg’s dangerous age verification law you signed off on first? No? Then f*ck off. Just another evil wearing a different color. Can’t even assume this executive order is made to benefit anyone because he’s in a billionaire’s pocket
Why not just throw Mark Zuckerberg in prison instead?
I am watching people with no skills use AI instead of my professional skill on a daily basis now. I’m a graphic designer, people are just asking AI to draw them mockups, ads, flyers. At work, the non-designers are asking ChatGPT to do things they used to ask me to do. And when I go on social media I see ads from Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, our industry standard tools, showing people new tools that allow users to just prompt the software to create and edit designs. So at this point even the industry software I’ve been using for over 20 years is capitulating to the non-skilled, non-designers. I’m worthless due to AI and it’s only a matter of time before I need to think seriously how am I going to make a career change in my 40s that will let me keep owning a home, a car, have health insurance. It’s honestly so terrifying and I’m stressed about it so bad.
So literally nothing will happen? Got it.
ah yes an executive order. the thoughts and prayers of policy
Anyone seen Gavin? Gaaaviiin? Gavin!
Regulation is nice but we need enforcement. AI training on stolen work is still theft. Make them pay for the data and maybe they slow down the replacement race.
It’s time to start taxing AI companies heavily. They’ve committed copyright infringement at scale and governments are so slow that they’ve let it happen under their noses. If they’re going to displace this many jobs, it’s only of benefit to stakeholders. Everyone else is kicked to the curb.
I work at a big tech company as a contractor consulting for very specific regulatory frameworks and keeping them in compliance. Our PM is a fucking idiot that has no business being in their position nor any position in this field. Our previous pm of 9 years was great and allowed our company to grow with theirs. The current new pm is almost at 2 years now. They have no experience with regulations or even remotely in this field and they will repeatedly draw up 5-30 page documents with a few gemini prompts, they will then send it to us to “proof read” or present it on a high level meeting and it becomes clear that they have literally never read the document prior to the meeting. There’s loads of AI sensationalism and bloated statements that are often false, not entirely correct or just completely unrelated to our focus and governance.
It’s fucking exhausting. Their ego is insane, if they are questioned about specifics they bulldoze anyone with conflated language and run arounds until they narrowly erk their way by without having proven their point. It’s pathetic and has cost our group an incredibly strong reputation, having been on the account over 12 years everyone knows and likes us and our work. They overcomplicate the simplest ideas and problem statements into a grand and verbose bs show that nothing can literally ever get done. They assign meaningless very burdensome tasks to our team for projects that go nowhere because they weren’t scoped out properly. They systematically removed us from all meetings early on with other leaders and groups because we are the SME and would have to (legally) question them when falsehoods or inaccuracies were routed as fact from their mouth.
I want to quit, I want to find a new job and I want to tank theirs somehow but remarkably they hold on, I would have thought the brilliant minds at this company would have caught on to their bullshit by now but they squeek by in some fucked up alternate universe where ineptitude goes unnoticed.
I’m in vfx. I haven’t been usurped yet but a vfx friend recently told me a big commercial gig he worked on they only used AI much to his chagrin. They generated hundreds of times to get to mediocre. And the client was fine with it. Clients have gone fron frame-fucking (the term in our biz for noodling stuff nobody will ever see) to accepting whatever AI will spit out. Mediocre is good enough for most non-creatives if the price is right.
Being in data science, my job I feel like is done in the next few years if not sooner. I’ve noticed stakeholders straight up reply to analyses I’ve delivered word for word from Claude.
It’s terrifying. We are not ready for any of this.
Let’s impede progress to prop up capitalism? Such a centrist liberal attitude smh. Its sad there is no actual left wing anticapitalist party in the US.
It’s coming for us all faster than you think.
AI will be the final death knell for all the less tech savvy people out there as well.
But also from what I’ve seen, start weeding out certain personality types in office environments as well.
Those busy work individuals who nitpick administrative errors? Way less of a need. People who truly understand strategy and their field will be more valuable.
Work for a big company doing entertainment media and we are not hiring any entry level at all or ever. They are all either automated or outsourced to India. The only way your getting in is if you having already heavy experience in your field. What’s crazy is it’s a double whammy of unpredictable with the ai flawed reports and the people outsourced aren’t as accurate as here. But both things save enough money the company is willing to put up with the flaws
It’s not going to stop the bleeding, but it might force some of these companies to be more honest (or come up with a different lie) about why they’re laying so many people off.
I got laid off due to AI this week. I’m totally clueless what direction to go in because my whole industry is quietly getting both offshored and AI’d.
Not that I mind, but I feel like they should have been doing this 15 years ago with all the outsourcing and H1B bullshit too.
Gov Newsom also wants all state workers back in office 4 days a week so they can pay for parking and lunches and prop up businesses in downtown areas, so take whatever he’s saying about jobs and labor with a grain of salt.
I can’t tell you how many times people have asked me to fix something they had AI do…the problem is, they think I should do it for free.
Plus the files, you can’t honestly fix. Not truly editable in most cases.
So they want me to recreate/redraw, and more, for free, because they side-stepped me to be a cheap ass, and now they think I should help them screw me over? And for free no less?
Nah. Hard pass, Bill. I don’t care if you’ll never use me again, you being cheap won’t pay for things like food and more.
Eat crap, Bill.
The order doesn’t do anything substantial. This is just Newsom grandstanding. He could do a lot more except that that would offend his corporate masters.
Universal basic income checks need to be funded from penalties issued against companies laying off folks for AI.
Not from the working middle class, which is always what happens.