226
this
(thelemmy.club)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2026
226 points (95.9% liked)
Fuck AI
7545 readers
2026 users here now
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I'm glad you highlighted that little snippet because ironically, this entire story sounded like it was written by AI. Is it even a real person lamenting their former coworkers, or is this just an AI false flag trying to normalize it and fluff it up, or maybe just someone farming karma?
Lots and lots of em-dashes. The rule of threes. A semicolon even. "And that's the floor." is a very Claude kind of thing to say and I have no idea what that particularly emphatic sentence is even trying to accomplish in that paragraph. What does it mean the floor? What floor?
Also is anyone actually getting offered voluntary retirement packages? That seems like a complete anachronism these days. This is the software industry. It's not unionized. Why would they give you anything other than minimum severance (or exactly the amount less than it would cost you to fight it?) I've been laid off from this industry before, and I know how it works, I've never even heard of anyone being offered a voluntary retirement package.
I strongly believe this is AI slop. Me highly sus.
I mentioned to a coworker the other day that a spreadsheet of "requirements" were sent over by someone, filled with em-dashes. He had no idea why I was so critical of the requirements, because on the surface they sounded legitimate. I pointed out that the guy who submitted them probably had no idea what half of them were, and just went with the plan submitted by AI.
"But how do you know"... my brother, it's the em-dashes. Nobody fucking used those in emails, spreadsheets, or whatever prior to AI.
Microsoft Word also used to autoreplace them in if I remember correctly, but that's also a red herring because nobody used Microsoft Word by choice either, and nobody sane is copy-pasting shit out of Microsoft Word into the real internet.
Just from the language up top and the reference to multiple orgs I assume this was in reference to the massive federal layoff last year that was presented as a voluntary retirement, but with the implicit threat that you'll probably be laid off in 6 months if you don't take it. One of the justifications from DOGE was that we were all more productive now.
humie-slop, ai-slop, slop is slop. Either you get that this non-productive bullshit is a complete dead end, or you remain open to the scam.
Also, yeah, severance packages are still a thing. My buddy just got 6 weeks when he got laid off.
It's got to be AI. I can barely parse it.
As for the "And that's the floor." I assume it means "and that's just the ground level people, not counting higher ups and management"
That's the floor, meaning the very bottom of the number (200, is those he personally knew), because he knows there's way more knowledge leaving than those he knew.