AI Reality Check: Did the LLM Job Apocalypse Begin Last Week?

Did the fintech company Block just lay off 40% of its workforce due to AI automation? Can the best AI models pass a freshman computer science class? Programmers love agentic AI, but how exactly are they using these tools? For those of you who followed the tech news this past week, these are all pressing questions, and we're gonna try to find some answers. I'm Cal Newport, and this is the AI reality check. Now I wanna do a quick aside before we get into this week's stories because this is a, a new format for my podcast feed. I wanna give you a quick explanation. More and more on the main Monday episode of this show, I've been reacting to the latest AI news where I put on my computer science hat and I try to push back on hype and vibe reporting and surface the deeper trends in these topics that I think really matter. But not everyone who listens to that Monday episode wants to hear about this, so I decided I would move the AI discussion to its own mini episodes on Thursdays. This is an experiment. Maybe I'll move it back. Maybe I'll move it to its own feed. Maybe I won't do it every week. So, just bear with me. But keep in mind, if you wanna share any of these episodes, we're also putting it up on YouTube so you can send the video link to someone who might need to hear some of this reality checking. Alright. That's enough logistics. Let's get into our first story of the week. Alright. Late last week, Jack Dorsey, the CEO of the fintech company Block, you know, they're responsible for, Stripe and Cash App among some other products, posted a note on x announcing massive layoffs at his company. Let me read you from this note. Dorsey said, today, we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company. We're reducing our organization by nearly half from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. That means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave. Alright. Later on, he says the following, we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. Our business is strong, Dot dot dot. But something has changed. We're already seeing that the intelligence tools we're creating and using paired with smaller and flatter teams are enabling a new way of working, which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company, and it's accelerating rapidly. Can I just make a quick aside? This is like a hint to CEOs. If you are announcing the layoff of forty percent of your staff, can you use capital letters at the beginning of your sentences? It really caught my attention in this tweet that he doesn't capitalize any of his words. I don't know. It feels a little disrespectful. But let's get back to the actual story here. The traditional media was quick to embrace and amplify Dorsey's …