In 2022, I was hired to build AI operations at a health-tech startup. At the time, we were pioneering the use of AI in healthcare, which required significant human oversight until one day, it didn’t. GPT-4 launched and within a short period of time, I realized my role no longer made sense. My employer came to the same conclusion. There was no plan to retrain me or redeploy my skills into a new version of the work. My job simply disappeared.
I say this not as a cautionary tale, but as context. When I look at the wave of mass layoffs being justified as AI transformation, I’m not reading about it from a distance. I’ve been on the other side of that decision.
