a software engineer's guide to industrial action
how to fend for yourself in the coming wave of automation
the next decade will likely bring about the wholesale automation of cognitive labor. this means the economic value of a generation of otherwise well-to-do techies and other white collar workers, and every generation following, will approach zero. and that means that you will lose a lot of your rights and standard of living.
for the luddhites on the eve of the industrial revolution, what to do was obvious. burn the factories down. organize, strike, protest. and yet they were still ultimately unsuccessful.
however, in comparison, the goal isn't to wholesale prevent automation. that's hard.
it's competitive systems all the way down: less automated roles will be replaced by more automated ones, same for firms, countries. there is no long-term automation-free stable equilibrium when the technology is invented. instead, your goal is to secure the best trade with your employer / the government for the most valuable resource you have — your human capital — before it depreciates irreversibly.
and that means putting yourself in a strong negotiating position.
you can strike, but you must strike early and in coordination, otherwise you jut hasten the speed that you're automated.
you can refuse to have screen-recording software that is collecting data on your work laptop to train AI models. and demand to own any data that you've contributed substantively to its creation. think github repos, memos you've written, recorded agent trajectories, your "likeness."
especially important: refuse to do any post-training for ai agents that are doing your particular role. don't listen to "it's just a thumbs up, thumbs down" or "treat it like a new intern"; you're helping train your replacement.
make it difficult to replace you.
follow the regular advice. get as senior within your organization as possible, so that you are the decisionmaker. make it so that your job depends on who you are — because of your networks and relationships and ability to organize other people, rather than what you do.
any employee will find it hard to take a stand individually. consider agreeing to a set of rules within your team. unionize.
your severance package negotiation is perhaps the most important one you will do in your entire economic life. you may not have an employer afterwards. ideally, you want some consistent fraction of the total wealth that is gained from the automation of your job, such that your income as a proportion of the total economy stays the same. ask for a certain compute allocation, so you control the agents, in perpetuity. ask for stock, but only if you think your company won't be outcompeted by faster automated ones. you can list these as a condition for collaboration.
some notes on the most important negotiation of your life:
first of all. negotiate. hard. your company may try to lay you off with a standard deal. you can afford to care less about harming your reputation. unlike regular times, where your reputations matters, this may be the last negotiation. if you feel like you are getting a bad deal, or a standard agreement, be willing to take your employer to court. make sure you know the letter of the law and what precise rights you have.
if your company is going to be one of the beneficiaries of ai automation, ask for as much of your compensation as you can get in stock options. better still if your company is one of the few private ai labs. better yet, ask for an income sharing agreement for the team of ai agents.
conversely if your company looks vulnerable to automation (eg. mckinsey), ask for as much cash as possible, and do not take stock etc. honestly, if you're waiting on a career change and you work at one of these vulnerable companies, you should probably do that now before you're laid off, anyway. start a startup. join government. work on safety. go wild.
before you are laid off, put yourself in the best negotiating position possible (see above).
if you are currently in "at will" employment, consider changing that — move to a jurisdiction where this is harder and the laws are stricter (though stay in the united states, if you can). have a good relationship with your manager.
coordinate with your colleagues. it'll be a mass round of layoffs, and the writing will be on the wall. see if you can negotiate a standard agreement for your team. call for commitments from senior leadership that layoffs will not happen, or that they'll be negotiated on fair terms.
follow the regular advice on how to negotiate well. keep in mind, though, that your relative position is quite weak. use whatever protections you have.
this may make the difference between your income going to subsistence level, and broadly being able to sustain the quality of life you had before.
good luck.
*all of this applies unless you're an alignment scientist, in which case automate yourself as quickly, and safely as possible. your work is too important for humans to slow it down. the world will thank you.