Amazon Founder Promises a Three-Day Workweek—but Left Out One Tiny Detail (2 photos)

Capitalism is a wonderful thing, especially when a man worth a couple hundred billion dollars waxes poetic about a bright future. Speaking at a business forum in New York, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—grinning ear to ear—announced that thanks to the rapid rise of AI, an economic miracle awaits humanity: people will work just three days a week, comfortably support their families, and enjoy life to the fullest.





Bezos did, in fact, shorten the workweek. But, as they say, there's a catch.

Just a couple of hours after his inspiring speech, Amazon executives signed off on layoffs for 1,000 corporate employees. With the stroke of a pen, their workweek was instantly slashed to zero days.

The cutbacks primarily hit white-collar workers across marketing, PR, and corporate communications. In an official email from HR, the unfortunate staff were told point-blank that they were being let go "as part of streamlining internal processes and integrating new AI technologies."

So Bezos wasn't lying at all! Neural networks really did free a whole bunch of people from their daily grind. Of course, along with the grind, they took away their salaries, health insurance, and ability to pay their mortgages. On the bright side, they now have all the free time in the world to go for long daily walks.



The funniest part is that Amazon has been trying to replace virtually everyone with robots for years. Inside their famous automated warehouses, metallic boxes are already lugging cargo around instead of humans. Now, restructuring has come for corporate cubicle workers who assumed sitting behind a computer kept them safe. And there are plans to let go of even more people.

So the next time some smiling boss tells you how new tech is going to liberate humanity from hard labor, check your inbox. An AI bot might just be sending a pink slip to your phone right at that very moment.