Andrew Maddox

Category: Jobs

  • Proliferating AI agents (Links) – Feb. 3, 2026

    AI’s rapid capability and deployment—seen in developer tools (Codex), agent networks (Moltbook) and emergent multi‑agent societies—offers productivity gains but creates unpredictable and manipulable (and surprising) behaviors!

  • AI acceleration: Moltbot and why AI matters (Links) – Feb. 1

    Skynet isn’t yet here, but perhaps we’re seeing the first glimpses of what AIs talking to AIs will mean. Yes, I’m mentioning Clawdbot/Molbot.

    • Alex Tabarrok: The Bots are Awakening (Jan. 31, 2026)
      “What matters is that AIs are acting as if they were conscious, with real wants, goals and aspirations.”
    • Ozzie Osman: A Step Behind the Bleeding Edge: Monarch’s Philosophy on AI in Dev (Jan. 22, 2026)
      “If you consider your job to be “typing code into an editor”, AI will replace it (in some senses, it already has). On the other hand, if you consider your job to be “to use software to build products and/or solve problems”, your job is just going to change and get more interesting.”Urges engineering teams to explore AI’s frontier but adopt a “dampened” approach—stay a step behind the bleeding edge—while preserving accountability: engineers must own, review, and deeply think about their work. Use AI for toil, prototypes, and internal tools, and design validation loops to ensure quality and security.
    • Google: Project Genie: AI world model now available for Ultra users in U.S. (Jan. 29, 2026)
      Google’s Project Genie, now available to U.S. Google AI Ultra subscribers, is an experimental prototype powered by Genie 3 that lets users create, explore, and remix dynamic worlds from text and images. It generates environments and interactions in real time while Google refines limitations and plans wider access.
    • Anthropic: How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills (Jan. 29, 2026)
      A randomized trial with 52 developers found AI coding assistance reduced immediate mastery by 17 percentage points (50% vs 67%) without significantly faster completion. Heavy delegation impaired debugging and conceptual learning, while using AI for explanations preserved understanding—suggesting AI can harm skill development unless used to build comprehension.
    • WSJ: The $100 Billion Megadeal Between OpenAI and Nvidia Is on Ice (Jan. 30, 2026)
      Nvidia’s plan to invest up to $100 billion and build at least 10 GW of compute for OpenAI has stalled amid internal doubts, with the agreement still nonbinding. Nvidia says it will make a sizeable investment and maintain the partnership as OpenAI raises funds.
    • WSJ: Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI Are Planning a Megamerger of Rockets and AI (Jan. 30, 2026)
      Elon Musk’s SpaceX and AI startup xAI are reportedly planning to merge, potentially consolidating his businesses and supporting ambitions like space-based AI data centers. Talks are early and uncertain as valuations, SpaceX’s planned IPO and regulatory issues remain unresolved.
    • TechCrunch: Apple buys Israeli startup Q.ai as the AI race heats up (Jan. 29, 2026)
      Apple has acquired Israeli AI startup Q.ai, reportedly for nearly $2 billion, its second-largest deal, gaining imaging and audio ML tech that improves whispered-speech recognition and noisy-environment audio.
    • CNBC: Mozilla is building an AI ‘rebel alliance’ to take on industry heavyweights OpenAI, Anthropic (Jan. 27, 2026)
      Mozilla president Mark Surman is assembling a “rebel alliance” of startups and technologists to promote open, trustworthy AI and counter dominant firms like OpenAI.
    • Andrej Karpathy: On MoltBot (Jan. 30, 2026)
      The author describes large networks of autonomous LLM agents (~150,000) combine impressive capabilities with rampant spam, scams, prompt-injection, and serious security and privacy risks. Though messy now, these agent networks could trigger unpredictable system-level harms such as text viruses, correlated botnets, and widespread jailbreaks, so they need scrutiny.”TLDR sure maybe I am ‘overhyping’ what you see today, but I am not overhyping large networks of autonomous LLM agents in principle, that I’m pretty sure.”
    • OpenAI: Inside OpenAI’s in-house data agent (Jan. 23, 2026)
      OpenAI built an internal AI data agent that explores, queries, and reasons over its platform—combining Codex, GPT‑5, embeddings, metadata, code-level table definitions, company docs, and memory—to deliver fast, accurate, contextual analytics. It automates discovery, SQL generation, and iterative self-correction to speed insights across teams.
    • NY Times Opinion: Pay More Attention to A.I. (Jan. 31, 2026)
      Comparing early European uncertainty about the New World to today’s conflicting claims about AI, from modest internet‑like change to singularity‑level upheaval. AI is advancing rapidly and urges greater public attention because near‑term decisions could have far‑reaching consequences.
    • WSJ: U.S. Companies Are Still Slashing Jobs to Reverse Pandemic Hiring Boom (Jan. 28, 2026)
      U.S. companies that expanded rapidly during the pandemic are now cutting tens of thousands of jobs while investing in AI and automation. Layoffs concentrate in tech and logistics even as overall labor markets remain relatively healthy.

  • NY Times: Your Job Interviewer Is Not a Person. It’s A.I.

    NY Times: Your Job Interviewer Is Not a Person. It’s A.I. (July 6, 2025)

    If you thought the interview process couldn’t get any worse, you were wrong. HR organizations looking for ways to reduce the load on their human recruiters have embraced these trends. 

    A.I. can personalize a job candidate’s interview, said Arsham Ghahramani, the chief executive and a co-founder of Ribbon AI. His company’s A.I. interviewer, which has a customizable voice and appears on a video call as moving audio waves, asks questions specific to the role to be filled, and builds on information provided by the job seeker, he said.

    “It’s really paradoxical, but in a lot of ways, this is a much more humanizing experience because we’re asking questions that are really tailored to you,” Mr. Ghahramani said.

    So yes, Ribbon AI chief Arsham Ghahramani describes his AI interview software as humanizing, an irony only the most self-interested and not particularly introspective people could claim with a straight face.

    But with applicants turning to AI to churn out applications, the AI arms race is all but guaranteed to grow.

  • WSJ: ‘Vibe Coding’ Has Arrived for Businesses

    WSJ: ‘Vibe Coding’ Has Arrived for Businesses (July 8, 2025)

    Vibe coding (using AI tools to create code) has exploded in popularity this year, speeding prototyping and development considerably. But experienced engineers are still required to confirm the AI-assisted development work fulfills the requirements and follows security best practices.

    Creating your own app is now possible with any number of artificial intelligence-based tools, leading to the “vibe coding” revolution for code-writing amateurs.

    But professional developers are picking it up now, too, bringing the practice—generally understood as the ability to create functioning apps and websites without strictly editing code—into businesses.

    Using AI tools like OpenAI’s GPT models and Anthropic’s Claude, Wilkinson’s (Vanguard’s divisional chief information officer for financial adviser services) team is vibe coding new webpages with the help of product and design staff. The process has eliminated the need for traditional handoffs of work between teams, speeding up the design for a new Vanguard webpage by 40%. Prototyping went from taking two weeks to 20 minutes, she said.

    “The role of the engineer is still very, very critical to make sure that the boundaries and conditions are set up front for what the vibe coding is going to produce,” she said. “It doesn’t excuse the engineer from needing to understand what’s going on behind the scenes.”

    I built my first vibe-coded app this week, and I was astonished by Claude Code and what it wrote. But I also have enough dormant development skills to understand how to create a new webserver instance, install tools using the terminal, and write MySQL queries.

    Jude Schramm, CIO of Fifth Third Bank, said the regional bank’s 700 full-time engineers may be entirely vibe coding in a few years’ time. Schramm said he’s already thinking more about the value of his developers as business problem-solvers rather than as code authors.

    This suggests that expertise remains a necessary component of the vibes-assisted world.

  • WSJ: Your Prize for Saving Time at Work With AI: More Work

    WSJ: Your Prize for Saving Time at Work With AI: More Work (July 8, 2025)

    It’s the age-old tension between employee satisfaction and employer-demanded productivity.  I (optimistically) believe it’s possible to use AI tools to take the drudgery out of the least agreeable parts of work and provide more time for creativity and innovative pursuits.

    A recent survey found nearly half of workers believe their AI time savings should belong to them, not their employers. That survey, conducted by business-software maker SAP, also found that workers using AI save almost an hour a day on average.

    But my optimism is tempered by knowing that a recession is coming, and companies have used these downturns to prune headcount and raise expectations of remaining employees. This seems the likely result, regardless of how these tools could be mutually beneficial.

    The clear message from [Andy Jassy] and other business leaders is that we can’t simply do as much work as we’ve been doing, in less time, and clock out early. If we do, we risk being replaced by someone who uses AI to increase output.

  • WSJ: CEOs Start Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: AI Will Wipe Out Jobs

    Analysts have been seeing structural changes in the job market related to AI, and now CEOs are admitting it openly. Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, suggests that 50% of white-collar jobs will be trimmed. JP Morgan exec Marianna Lake also sees a 10% drop in headcount.

    “I think it’s going to destroy way more jobs than the average person thinks,” James Reinhart, CEO of the online resale site ThredUp, said at an investor conference in June.

    While Microsoft’s CEO isn’t publicly declaring that AI will cause job losses, the company did announce another reduction this month, bringing their recent layoffs to a total of around 15,000 people.