Laid-off tech worker Joseph Tinner has spent almost a year hunting for a job. It has been a depressing crash course on the sea change in Silicon Valley.

The former product instructor from the San Francisco Bay Area has ridden the tech wave throughout his career, easily jumping from Verizon to Fitbit to Workday. Since losing his job early last year, the 59-year-old has hit a wall.

He applied for hundreds of roles — sometimes going through multiple rounds of consideration — only to get rejected again and again.

“It’s been a roller coaster,” he said. “It just takes a lot of resilience, honestly, to be in this job market.”

He isn’t alone.

Tech companies that aggressively hired during the COVID-19 pandemic have been slashing tens of thousands of jobs. For workers like Tinner, it has been a rough realization that the Silicon Valley shakeout is stretching into another year.

Just last week, Block — the financial tech company that owns payment services Square, Cash App and Afterpay — said it is laying off 4,000 people, or half of its workforce.

Many other tech companies outside the hot artificial intelligence sector are slashing staff. Block blamed AI, saying the powerful technology means it no longer needs as many people.

“The intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company,” Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Block and a founder of Twitter, said in a post on X.

U.S.-based tech employers announced more than 33,000 job cuts from January to February, up 51% compared with the same period last year, the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Thursday.

Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for the firm, said he used to be skeptical that companies could replace workers with AI, but he’s starting to become convinced.

“Artificial intelligence has overtaken the attention of these companies in such a dramatic way,” he said.

Mass layoffs in the tech industry started in 2022, after a hiring surge during the pandemic, when demand for online services increased as people were stuck at home.

But many of the world’s most powerful tech companies have continued cutting, even as their profits have grown. They’ve cited various reasons for layoffs, from strategic shifts and restructuring to pivoting to smaller teams and fewer managers.

Tech companies such as EBay, Meta, Google, Autodesk, Pinterest, Salesforce and others have been shrinking their workforces. Layoffs have also hit the media and entertainment companies, including Los Angeles video game developer Riot Games.

On LinkedIn, laid-off workers who have been out of work — some for more than two years — have been asking for help finding a job. They’ve been sharing stories about their financial and emotional struggles, including losing their confidence, homes and savings as they search for work.

Tech workers who have seen their employers grow over the last decade have noticed a shift in corporate culture. Workers who have been laid off before said it has been tougher and taken longer to land a new job than in previous years.

A longtime Salesforce employee, who was recently laid off and asked to remain anonymous, concerned that speaking to the media could affect their severance, said the sales software company used to be more focused on helping its employees. Salesforce broadcast this value by highlighting its “ohana,” culture, using the Hawaiian word for family.

“I was just incredibly grateful every day to be able to wake up and make a positive change in the world,” the worker said. “I thought that the company was devoted to the same thing.”

But the tone at Salesforce shifted in 2023 as the company faced pressure to cut costs and increase profits. New leaders came in, and the focus changed.

“The company is trying to erase any semblance of the way that it used to be,” the worker said.

Salesforce has said AI is helping it squeeze more profit from fewer people.

“AI is doing 30% to 50% of the work at Salesforce now,” the company’s co-founder and Chief Executive Marc Benioff told Bloomberg.

Salesforce didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce Inc., during a Bloomberg Television interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos,

(Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Although technology is changing the way people work, experts and even some AI executives think companies sometime use AI as an excuse to cut workers in what’s referred to as “AI washing.”

Enrico Moretti, a professor of economics at UC Berkeley, said other factors besides AI are fueling layoffs. As a company grows larger and matures, it doesn’t hire as much as before.

“It’s a shift in their position and the maturing of their product, and therefore the technologies and their employment needs,” he said.

Roger Lee, an entrepreneur who created a website to track layoffs, Layoffs.fyi, in 2020, said in an email that tech companies are pouring billions of dollars into AI investments, and cutting headcount helps offset those costs.

When he started tracking layoffs six years ago, Lee wanted to create awareness around tech layoffs and help laid-off workers find their next job. He never anticipated the layoffs would continue today.

“I do think 6 years of persistent layoffs have led many tech workers to re-evaluate the perceived ‘safety’ of tech jobs and their relationship with the industry overall,” he said in an email.

According to Layoffs.fyi’s latest count, there have been more than 35,000 layoffs in the tech sector worldwide so far this year.

Close to half of that total is from Amazon alone.

Unemployed tech worker Tinner was laid off from Workday, a Pleasanton company that provides a platform to businesses, universities and organizations to manage payroll, benefits, finances and other tasks.

In 2025, Workday slashed roughly 1,750 jobs, or 8.5% of its global workforce, citing a prioritization of investments in artificial intelligence and platform development. Then in February, the company said it plans to cut 2% of its workforce, or roughly 400 employees.

As job cuts pile up, Tinner is up against intense competition in a job market flooded with talent from the top companies in tech.

As he ponders his next career steps, he’s also redefining his identity and relationship with work.

He’s even tried pouring beer for fun or thought about doing more artwork.

“Maybe what I need to do is just celebrate all I’ve done instead of getting back into this rat race, on this treadmill, and look for something totally different,” he said.

A brokered deal with regulators and consumer advocates will allow State Farm General to keep controversial increases in home insurance rates that took effect last year in the wake of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires.

The agreement sent to a judge late Friday cements a $530-million emergency hike in home insurance rates Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara negotiated with the insurer last summer.

“The agreement will provide financial relief to many policyholders while ensuring continued coverage for State Farm policyholders while California’s insurance market stabilizes,” the insurance department said in a news release.

State Farm argued the emergency hike was necessary because catastrophic fire losses jeopardized its financial ratings.

The company has reported that it paid out $6.2 billion in claims last year, largely from the wildfires, with most of the costs covered through reinsurance payments. The company has told regulators it anticipates to pay an additional $1 billion in claims.

The deal allows the insurer to keep an average 17% increase in homeowner rates. Local rates for many of the company’s 1 million home customers were much higher.

However, consumer advocates argued the agreement held the line on even higher increases and halted further policy cancellations that have deepened a crisis in the state’s insurance industry.

State Farm, California’s largest home insurer, froze new business in 2023, announced 72,000 mass non-renewals, and sought a series of rate hikes. Its average homeowners premium in California doubled from 2020 to 2024.

Under Friday’s agreement, State Farm agrees to forgo mass non-renewals in 2026 and undergo further review of its rates by 2027.

Additionally, State Farm will be required to return nearly two-thirds of its 15% increase to condominium owners, deliver a small refund to rental property owners and be able to raise premiums for renters a half a percent.

“This rate enables State Farm General to continue serving existing California customers,” the company said in a statement. “We will continue to monitor our capacity to support the risks we insure and maintain the financial strength needed to pay claims and support customers and communities when it matters most.”

If approved by an administrative law judge, the settlement will be forwarded to Lara, who is expected to back it.

The arrangement sidesteps efforts to tie State Farm’s rates to its handling of disaster claims.

Under pressure from community advocates and lawmakers, Lara in May had said he wanted the two issues evaluated together.

In June, Lara announced his department would conduct an “expedited” examination into State Farm’s market conduct. In rate hearing proceedings, agency staff sought to block discussion of State Farm’s claims handling in relation to its quest for premium hikes.

The pact does not directly address complaints of unhappy policyholders who say Lara’s administration has failed to hold State Farm accountable, which the insurance department has disputed.

A department spokesman said Lara would not comment on the matter while the rate settlement is before an administrative judge.

The Jan. 7, 2025, firestorm destroyed at least 16,000 homes, triggering more than 42,000 insurance claims. State Farm has said it has 13,500 fire and auto claims related to the fires.

The insurer has come under heavy criticism from fire victims over its handling of claims, including complaints of low payout offers, denials for toxin testing and delays in payments for living expenses. The company has declined to comment on the complaints.

Some 51,000 State Farm homeowners live in disaster areas struggling to recover from the L.A. firestorm. Regulatory filings show those areas among the hardest hit by the current hikes.

Malibu resident Chad Peters said his bill from State Farm increased 140% in the last year, from $3,500 to $8,400.

Peters said he has battled State Farm for 14 months over smoke and fire damage to his home from the Palisades fire, and that the insurer at one point attempted to cancel his coverage because the house remained unrepaired.

He called rate increases in such circumstances “ludicrous, while they’re giving everyone such a hard time with their insurance … I mean, mine has been a steep uphill battle all year long.”

Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra) had urged Lara to delay hikes until after the investigation into State Farm’s conduct.

“The fact that I have so many individuals who have not received any of their claims, that are still navigating denials and delays, who are actively running out of [living expense payments] and … facing housing insecurity — it makes me deeply concerned,” Pérez said.

Pérez, along with Sens. Ben Allen (D-Pacific Palisades) and Sade Elhawary (D-Los Angeles), in April pressed Lara to defer rate hikes until State Farm General’s claims practices could be investigated. “This was a big priority for us.”

Pérez said she would seek answers to the market conduct exam as part of a Senate inquiry into the insurance department’s handling of those complaints, along with scrutiny of the department’s discipline of a compliance officer who criticized State Farm’s handling of claims.

State Farm General, an offshoot of national insurance giant State Farm Mutual, contends it has been financially sinking as seasonal wildfires morph into catastrophic urban conflagrations that destroy towns.

In mid-2024, the company asked to raise home premiums by nearly $1 billion. Lara secured an agreement that State Farm Mutual lend its California affiliate $400 million, but the insurer would not agree to cancel plans for dropping 11,000 more policyholders.

The settlement allows State Farm to avoid a public hearing that would have forced the disclosure of solvency records, mass non-renewals and other information it said would help competitors.

It’s becoming clearer with every passing day that the only people making a serious effort to come to grips with the implications of artificial intelligence for society aren’t legislators, or business leaders, or AI promoters themselves. They’re judges.

Indeed, in recent weeks, judges in two federal cases have drawn a line that seems to have eluded many others contemplating AI. The cases relate to copyright law and attorney-client privilege.

In both cases, the judges have effectively declared that AI bots are not human. They don’t have rights reserved for people, and their outputs don’t deserve to be treated as though they come from human intelligence or have any special high-tech standing.

There’s more to those cases than that. Both cases, including one that got as far as the Supreme Court, underscore the determination of AI promoters and uses to infiltrate the new technology deeper into society.

Start with the more recent case. On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to take up a lawsuit in which artist and computer scientist Stephen Thaler tried to copyright an artwork that he acknowledged had been created by an AI bot of his own invention. That left in place a ruling last year by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which held that art created by non-humans can’t be copyrighted.

The case revolved around a 2012 painting titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” depicting train tracks running under a bridge and disappearing into vegetation. Thaler wrote in his application for a copyright that the “author” of the work was his “Creativity Machine,” an AI tool, and that the work was “created autonomously by machine.”

The appellate ruling didn’t engage in artistic criticism, but the work’s artificial origin might be manifest to the discerning eye — its landscape is busy yet indistinct, sort of a melange of green and purple, and the framing doesn’t have any artistic logic — the eye doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be following. But Thaler says it’s the AI bot’s creation and wasn’t generated in response to any user prompt.

In any event, for Judge Patricia A. Millett, who wrote the opinion for a unanimous three-judge panel, the case wasn’t a close one. She cited longstanding regulations of the Copyright Office requiring that “for a work to be copyrightable, it must owe its origin to a human being.”

Millett noted that Thaler hadn’t bothered to conceal the non-human origin of “A Recent Entrance,” acknowledging in court papers that the painting “lacks human authorship.” She rejected Thaler’s argument, as had the federal trial judge who first heard the case, that the Copyright Office’s insistence that the author of a work must be human was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court evidently agreed.

Thaler told me he didn’t see the Supreme Court’s turndown as a “legal defeat.” In a LinkedIn post about the case, he wrote that the decision “represents a philosophical milestone — one that exposes how deeply our intellectual property system struggles to confront autonomous machine creativity.”

As that suggests, Thaler believes we shouldn’t distinguish how we view human creations from machine outputs. “Intelligence, creativity, and invention are not limited to human products,” he told me by email. Autonomous computational systems such as his AI program, he said, “can generate these functions independently.”

Millett’s ruling actually opened the door to admitting AI into the copyright world — but only when it’s used as a tool by a human author. What set Thaler’s case apart from those, she wrote, was his insistence that his AI bot was the “sole author of the work” (emphasis hers), “and it is undeniably a machine, not a human being.”

That brings us to the second case, which involved the question of whether an AI bot’s work should be protected under attorney-client privilege. Federal Judge Jed S. Rakoff of New York ruled, concisely, “The answer is no.”

As I’ve written in the past, Rakoff is one of our most percipient jurists about the impact of new technologies on the law. In his occasional essays for the New York Review of Books, he’s examined how a secret AI algorithm has skewed the sentencing of criminal defendants (especially Black defendants), how cryptocurrency advocates have made a tangle of existing laws on fraud, and how the misuse of cognitive neuroscience has resulted in convictions based on false memories.

In other words, Rakoff isn’t a judge you should try snowing with technological flapdoodle.

The case involved one Bradley Heppner, who was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly looting $150 million from a financial services company he chaired. Heppner pleaded innocent and was released on $25-million bail. The case is pending.

According to a ruling Rakoff issued on Feb. 17, the issue before him concerned exchanges that Heppner had with Claude, the chatbot developed by the AI firm Anthropic, written versions of which were seized by the FBI when it executed a search warrant of Heppner’s property.

Knowing that an indictment was in the offing, Heppner had consulted Claude for help on a defense strategy. His lawyers asserted that those exchanges, which were set forth in written memos, were tantamount to consultations with Heppner’s lawyers; therefore, his lawyers said, they were confidential according to attorney-client privilege and couldn’t be used against Heppner in court. (They also cited the related attorney work product doctrine, which grants confidentiality to lawyers’ notes and other similar material.)

That was a nontrivial point. Heppner had given Claude information he had learned from his lawyers, and shared Claude’s responses with his lawyers.

Rakoff made short work of this argument. First, he ruled, the AI documents weren’t communications between Heppner and his attorneys, since Claude isn’t an attorney. All such privileges, he noted, “require, among other things, ‘a trusting human relationship,’” say between a client and a licensed professional subject to ethical rules and duties.

“No such relationship exists, or could exist, between an AI user and a platform such as Claude,” Rakoff observed.

Second, he wrote, the exchanges between Heppner and Claude weren’t confidential. In its terms of use, Anthropic claims the right to collect both a user’s queries and Claude’s responses, use them to “train” Claude, and disclose them to others.

Finally, he wasn’t asking Claude for legal advice, but for information he could pass on to his own lawyers, or not. Indeed, when prosecutors tested Claude by asking whether it could give legal advice, the bot advised them to “consult with a qualified attorney.”

In his ruling, Rakoff did make an effort to address the broader questions judges face in dealing with AI. “Only three years after its release,” he wrote, “one prominent AI platform is being used by more than 800 million people worldwide every week. Yet the implications of AI for the law are only beginning to be explored.”

He concluded that “generative artificial intelligence “presents a new frontier in the ongoing dialogue between technology and the law….But AI’s novelty does not mean that its use is not subject to longstanding legal principles, such as those governing the attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine.”

In this case and elsewhere, Rakoff has shown a superb grasp of technology issues. In his 2021 essay about the AI algorithm capable of sending people to jail, he put his finger on the factor that makes the very term “artificial intelligence” a misnomer.

The term, he wrote, tends to “conceal the importance of the human designer….It is the designer who determines what kinds of data will be input into the system and from what sources they will be drawn. It is the designer who determines what weights will be given to different inputs and how the program will adjust to them. And it is the designer who determines how all this will be applied to whatever the algorithm is meant to analyze.”

He’s right. That why judges have had so much trouble determining whether the AI engineers feeding information into chatbots to make it seem like they’re “creative” and even “sentient” are infringing the copyrights of the original creators of that information, or creating something new.

The problem is that they’re asking the wrong question. Everything an AI bot spews out is, at more than a fundamental level, the product of human creativity. The AI bots are machines, and portraying them as though they’re thinking creatures like artists or attorneys doesn’t change that, and shouldn’t.