Over the past few weeks, several US banks have pulled off from lending to Oracle for expanding its AI data centres, as per a report.
This is technically job loss caused by AI…
Oracle Layoffs: Tech giant to slash 30,000 jobs as banks pull out from financing AI data centres | Company Business News
Submitted 2 weeks ago by Deceptichum@quokk.au to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
XLE@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
More accurately its caused by AI Mania, not AI proper, directly, but yeah.
biofaust@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is a very good point. I never had the discussion whether real AI, not transformer-based chatbots, would be a boon or a bane for human workers. I mean, we should already have data about it.
Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
The bubble popping seems inevitable at this point. Before the Giants were funding this by their core business plus loans backed by their core business. Now they’ve stretched their credit so much that no one’s giving them loans anymore and instead of cutting back on the building spree they’re making cuts to their core business. They’re betting that their customers are so locked in that they won’t leave despite degradation in service. How deep oracle, AWS, googles hooks are in people remain to be seen, people seem to tolerate a lot of enshitification, but there’s gotta be a tipping point. Once they reach that and the core business crashes all the rest of the dominos will fall.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
that is why they are trying to peddle this to governments in EU, USA so heavily, they know they will take on AI at face value, instead of testing the efficacy of using AI.
M0oP0o@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
Great timing then, just as the states becomes a global pariah making every one else on earth have to reevaluate any business done with american based firms. Nations are worried about massive instability and war, no one has the appetite to gamble big on unproven tech dreams.
Munkisquisher@lemmy.nz 2 weeks ago
Once these companies have to start charging what it really costs to maintain and run these huge models. The number of use cases will shrivel.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
Models are becoming more optimized. I’ve recently tried LFM2.5, small version, and it’s ridiculously close in usefulness to Qwen3.5, for example. Or RNJ-1.
To maintain, meaning actualized datasets - well, sort of expensive, but they were assembling those as a side effect of their main businesses.
So this is not what’ll kill them. Their size will. These are very big companies with lots of internal corruption and inefficiency pulling them down. And a few new AI companies, which, I think, are going to survive, they are centered around specific products, some will die, but I’d expect LiquidAI or Anthropic or such to still be around some time after the crash.
The crash might coincide with a bubble burst, but notice how this family of technologies really is delivering results. Instead of a bunch of specialized applications people are asking LLMs and getting often good enough answers. LLM agents can retrieve data from web services, perform operations, assist in using tools.
You shouldn’t look at the big ones in the cloud, rather at what value local LLMs give you for energy spent. Right now it’s not that good, but approaching good honestly. I don’t feel like they’ve stopped becoming better. Human time is still more expensive. The tools are there, and are being improved, and the humans are slowly gaining experience in using them, and that makes them more efficient in various tasks.
It’s for all kinds of reference and knowledge tools what Google was for search.
And there’s one just amazing thing about these models - they are self-contained, even if some can use tools to access external sources. Our corporate overlords have been building a dependent networked world for 20 years, simply to break it by popularizing a technology that almost neuters that. They were thinking, probably, that they were reaping the crops of the web for themselves, instead they taught everyone that you don’t have to eat at the diner, you can take the food home.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Perfect time for some foreign company to eat Oracles lunch.
rumba@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
It’s always been just a matter of time
maplesaga@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Once that glorified autocomplete turns sentient you’ll look like quite the fewel.
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
I think this is two stories being mixed a bit here?
A bit over one month old, the lending issues: cio.com/…/oracle-may-slash-up-to-30000-jobs-to-fu…
Now, confirmation of the cuts that were suspected since last year from Bloomberg: reuters.com/…/oracle-plans-thousands-job-cuts-dat…
I’m not saying there is not a link between the events, but somehow the posted article does a weird rehash mixed with news, and is not even dated, and I don’t like that, so I’m sharing the individual news pieces as separate links for other’s benefit.
andallthat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I see you and raise you a class action for reckless AI spending: marketwatch.com/…/oracle-corporation-orcl-class-a…
MatSeFi@lemmy.liebeleu.de 2 weeks ago
Thanks for doing the research
brbposting@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
This behavior increases enjoyment and utility of the Internet. Thank you!
HazardousBanjo@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
AI, at this point, seems to have been the single largest scam and money laundering scheme in history.
namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
So far! Don’t worry, Silicon Valley will think of another new, even bigger scam in no time!
nlgranger@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I believe the war industry will take it over for the next turn.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
At least the banks are figuring out what we knew long ago.
The_Almighty_Walrus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You’d think they learned from the dotcom bubble and the hundred other times they gambled and lost. I guess it doesn’t matter when you just get paid back with taxpayer money.
InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Sucks to be in tech right now. I’m sure there are still pockets of good employers with happy, confident worker bees, but those are few and far between as best I can tell.
Pretty much everybody I know and speak with regularly who is working in the tech industry or a tech role in general is feeling the strain.
Layoffs. Remaining employees have to pick up the additional workload of people who were laid off. Threats of future layoffs. Hiring freezes. Bonuses slashed or cut entirely. Little or no raises, not even cost of living increases. Demotions, in some cases. Expected to use LLMs to do things that LLMs have no business doing because management is clueless on the topic and expects everybody who is “good with computer” to be an AI expert. And the list goes on.
And then as already mentioned elsewhere, there are almost no true entry-level positions opening up, so new grads are really struggling to get established in the industry. It’s particularly sad because this is so short-sighted and the negative impacts have the potential to be quite severe.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I was laid off in 2019 by a large west coast tech giant as part of a mass layoff. We had the option of trying to find a new internal job but every job posting involved AI (seven years ago!) and nobody that I knew even got a reply from any application. Now I’m a school bus driver and 100X happier even though I make like 1/5 of what I used to make. The plot twist is that AI is probably going to replace school bus drivers sooner or later, flattened children be damned.
rumba@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
They could, but you’ll likely be the last one to go. Those kids will likely kill each other without supervision, and the third time they have to drive little Jimmy to school because the bus AI didn’t wait 30 seconds, they’ll be so far up the administration’s ass. They’ll know what they had for breakfast.
HubertManne@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
ugh. I hate driving.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
my older bro as laid off as part of the first wave in '23 heard thier company got bought out and he hasnt found any job yet, he might be doing “investment or stocks though”.
jkercher@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Easy win for companies that didn’t buy into the hype. I’m the only dedicated software dev at my company, so there was no middle manager to foolishly think a chat bot could do my job. We are a small company that can compete with big players, and those big players appear to be floundering. Now, we are expanding.
HubertManne@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
This is worse than 2008 and I remember back then I was let go and the other guy was not and we sorta debated which would be worse off. This is way worse though. I would say at least twice as bad at this point. Funny thing was no one realized the trouble we were in in 2008 it was really like 2010 by the time it was really felt. On hindsite they are going to be talking about the collapse in 2025.
7101334@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m not an economist, so I don’t know shit about fuck (though most economists don’t either tbf), but some people are comparing this to the railway bubble. Shit’s (potentially) so bad that they don’t even have a comparison from within our lifetimes to point to.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
we already seeing the effects of fresh graduates from college, and those that are still in. i wonder if any more reports of universities having low enrollments is going to be too big to ignore.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Didn’t see THAT coming, huh “oracle”?
Jankatarch@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You should be able to sue companies for gambling away their employees’ lives like that.
maplesaga@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You as in who, the shareholders that voted for it?
HK65@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
It’s not unheard of, in certain cases in certain more civilised states it does happen.
The state should be able to sue as layoffs put strain on the social system.
d3adpaul77@lemmy.org 2 weeks ago
here comes the oh so predictable crash.
hanrahan@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
I was listening to a finance YT vid last night and the dude said if it wasn’t for the enormous AI spend, the US would be deep in a technical recession now.
obviously the fault of immigrants and those on food stamps though /s
Rooster326@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
We are in a deep recession?
The enormous AI spend isn’t going to me, or you, or anyone I ever met.
Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
True, but line isn’t going down yet.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Those damn immigrants taking up all of the best landscaping, slaughterhouse, roof tarring, and crop picking jobs.
andallthat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ironically the only jobs that Anthropic and OpenAI claim AI won’t take. All those newly minted AI billionaires and nobody to maintain their golf courses… How sad is that?
hydrashok@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Pop that bubble, baby!
jj4211@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is the fascinating thing about this bubble. Usually people are suspecting a bubble/perceiving it, and are afraid of when it pops, but no one really wants it to pop, they just don’t like the fragility it causes knowing it could pop any minute.
So many people actively want the AI bubble to pop. I can’t recall a bubble so odious that everyone was rooting for it to hurry up and fail before.
jason@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
I think this one is just more obviously a bubble. If the pop is inevitable, then, the sooner the better. That, and the AI everywhere all at once is tangible and in your face. No one I know likes it.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
YESSSSSS~
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They fired people for AI, now they fire them without AI. Please tell me how they plan on sustaining an economy where only the 1% has discretionary income?
yabbadabaddon@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
They don’t need an economy. They need obedient workers
Randelung@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Control instead of trust, a problem as old as time. Trust would lead to prosperity, control, if not absolute, will always eventually fail - and it’s never absolute.
andallthat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
But Oracle was building those data centers for OpenAI. OpenAI is going to be used by the Pentagon. Bailing Oracle out is now a matter of National Security!! If this has to come off of the taxes paid by the people they just laid off, that’s unfortunate but… have I mentioned National Security?
Sxan@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
No, this week it’s the children.
FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
qevlarr@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What does Oracle even do?
prof@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
Charge people who accidentally used their Java SDK.
anon_8675309@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Create a db that sucks so bad you have to hire them to maintain it.
ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Boy you’re in for a ride.
Palantir runs on Oracle Cloud.
Oracle finances Paramount buying out Warner Bros.
Other shady shit Oracle does: …substack.com/…/the-merger-that-needed-a-war
Basically think Oracle is a competent League of Evil that can hide from the media spotlight.
CitizenKong@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They hide from the media spotlight by increasingly being the media spotlight.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 weeks ago
They sell software that sits so deep in people’s stack that replacing it takes tons of effort. Companies calculate that it’s cheaper to keep paying Oracle than to rewrite crucial services.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Specifically, they have had a popular expensive DBMS for last 30ish years.
clif@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It took three years but we’ve almost rooted it all out.
There’s still one ancient product that will (theoretically) decommission in mid 2028. It makes with money to cyber the Oracle licensing but isn’t worth reworking to migrate.
Knowing how decom goes, I’m sure it’ll still be running in 2035 with that one last client who “can’t move to the newer, better, easier project because… Reasons (I don’t wanna)”
turboSnail@piefed.europe.pub 2 weeks ago
Some people say Oracle doesn’t have clients. They have hostages.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Sues their customers
drmoose@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve been a software engineer for over 20 years now and tbh I couldn’t tell you even if my life depended on it. I know it’s a shit tier hosting service that people use because they offer 5$ worth virtual server for free with a valid credit card but that’s about it.
It’s one of those ancient paper shuffling IT companies that is 95% sale/middle mamager leeches, 5% wizard engineers carrying everything on their shoulders.
OpenPassageways@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Both IBM and Oracle I haven’t really worked with because they’re heavily used by massive companies. We had an Oracle database when I was in banking that was because we were self hosting a loan accounting system. IBM does backend data processing stuff for massive companies like American Express and Bank of America. All of the smaller shops I’ve worked in have built things on Microsoft’s stack.
Tja@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Is this hyperbole? I really doubt someone can be a SWE for even 2 years and not know what oracle does…
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Makes Larry Edison rich
flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
They used to sell a pretty good (if complex) database system. However it hasn’t been popular for many years. I assume they still have big customers who are locked in.
These days they’re just another amorphous “cloud service provider”, and not a good one either.
jj4211@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
In IT the golden rule is regardless of technical media, you do not want a business relationship with Oracle under any circumstances.
They will use that foot in the door to make your life hell with audits and invoicing crap you never bought.
Dremor@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I work with a client using an Oracle DB. You have to do multiple request to even do something basic as pagination 😂.
They improved it over the years, but given the choice, I’d advice for anything else than Oracle. I’d even prefer MS Sql, which, given I’m pretty anti-MS, is a miracle.
Tja@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
It hasn’t been popular? I guess you mean “cool” or “trendy” but well more than half of enterprise applications work on oracle, closer to 75% in fact.
Yes, plenty of companies are exiting oracle but it will still dominate for at least a decade. Sometimes there’s just no good equivalent, and no, Postgres cannot compare even tho it’s a great DB for many use cases.
matlag@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Years ago, they were the go to solution for databases. No CIO would ever be fired for picking Oracle over competitors regardless the pain that would follow, same as having Windows as the OS on all employees computers.
If there’s an issue with the world’s most popular solutxon: “Shits happens, we all know”, if there’s an issue with that alternative solution: “You see what bappens with your toy-thing? Let’s be professional and use a professional solution!”.
Years have passed, the alternative slowly made a name for themselves, but OracleDB didn’t evolve much because of inertia and the high maintenance that locks existing customers.
So now they’re going all-in on data centres for AI, that means to me the end is near.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
One rich asshole called Larry Ellison.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Real jobs or AI jobs.
sveltecider@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I cannot wait for this bubble to finally burst.
Mwa@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
this may be one of the early signs of a burst(besides the economy falling due to that one war i think?)
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 weeks ago
This looks desperate. They already sold $300B worth of data center capacity to OpenAI and this move will save them up to $10B.
NutWrench@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Freaking finally. Maybe RAM prices will finally start coming down.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hate for the job losses but happy that data centers are starved to death
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I hope oracle tanks and takes Ellison with ir
Earthman_Jim@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
lol
Etterra@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
Hahahahahahaha! inhale hahahahahaha!
doug@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Pull out, don’t pull out, we’re fucked either way.
GamingChairModel@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This particular source seems sketchy, but the broader context supports the core of this story.
There was a report in January from TD Cowen that Oracle needed to free up cash as banks tightened up lending for data center deals, and that certain projects were on hold and in jeopardy of being canceled. That same report projected that Oracle might lay off 20,000 to 30,000 workers.
Then, just this last Friday, Bloomber reported that Oracle and OpenAI canceled their plans to expand their flagship data center in Texas as part of their $500 billion “Stargate” initiative. Here’s the Reuters article describing it at a high level, because the original report is paywalled.
So everyone is looking back at that January report and seeing the recent data center news as confirmation that Oracle wants to free up cash by laying off staff.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s happening!
(I might make a meme video featuring Bob Ross smiling in front of a nice greenery, while some nice music playing.)
tal@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Note that the article is from the beginning of February.
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Why did it take so long
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Fuckin explains a lot of the last month’s issues