February 16, 2026
Beach views, pink slips?
I guess I kinda get why people hate AI
Waikiki worries spark a brawl: job apocalypse, hype train, or bosses’ new toy
TLDR: A vacationing coder wonders if AI will take his job, sparking a fiery thread about automation’s real target. Commenters split between doomsday warnings, claims that chatbots are overhyped, and cynicism that AI is being sold to bosses to cut workers—showing rising anxiety over who benefits from AI and who gets left out.
A beachside coder wonders if AI will end his career, and the comments went full-on soap opera. The author recalls how new tech—from textile machines to ATMs—often boosts progress, admits he’s less certain now, and even jokes about asking Google’s Gemini for a not-sad Valentine’s bar. That’s all the crowd needed: cue Doomer vs. Cynic showdown.
One camp points to big-name AI leaders talking about job losses and whole job categories vanishing, with mjr00 confessing they feel “insane” hearing technologists boast about disruption. Another angle: dgxyz says large language models (chatbots that predict words) don’t do anything that can’t be done better the old-fashioned way, and accuses AI of whitewashing layoffs—the corporate spin that blames robots instead of bad management. On the flip side, bananaflag torpedoes the author’s ATM example, saying phone apps actually shrank bank branches—so yes, automation can cut humans. Meanwhile, v3xro swats away the writer’s “AI kills boilerplate code” praise with a nerdy burn: try better languages. And nativeit claims AI is being sold to executives and investors, not to the people doing the work.
The memes wrote themselves: “Mai Tai to bye-bye,” “speed-dating your pink slip,” and a running gag that AI’s true skill is pitching your boss while you’re still on vacation.
Key Points
- •The author, days from starting a new job, expresses concern that AI could threaten future employability.
- •Historical comparisons include Luddites and ATMs, highlighting that technology often shifts jobs rather than eliminating them.
- •The 2017 “Attention Is All You Need” paper is cited as ushering in the current LLM era.
- •Despite previous techno‑optimism (e.g., disputing CGP Grey’s video), the author is now less certain about AI’s net effect on work.
- •The author uses AI tools like Gemini and finds them practically helpful, including for coding tasks in Haskell.