--- title: "AI Engineers Say They’re Burning Out as Bosses Whiplash From One Desperate Idea to Another" description: "As the AI bubble continues inflating at lightning speed, the people doing the industry's grunt work are feeling the churn." date: "2024-05-04" modified: "2024-05-04" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-engineers-burning-out" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai industry" - "ceos" - "tech companies" - "the digest" --- # AI Engineers Say They’re Burning Out as Bosses Whiplash From One Desperate Idea to Another ![As the AI bubble continues inflating at lightning speed, the people doing the industry's grunt work are feeling the churn.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Full Stack As the [AI bubble]() continues inflating at lightning speed, the people doing the industry's grunt work are feeling the churn. In [interviews with *CNBC*](), AI engineers from giant companies including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft say that they've been under immense pressure to build new products for their employers — except that on many occasions, the features they work tirelessly to deliver are shelved at the finish line. One Amazon AI engineer, who spoke to *CNBC* anonymously over concerns of retaliation, said that he was assigned an urgent project on a Friday night that was due Monday morning by 6 am. Despite having out-of-town company, he blew them off to spend the entire weekend working on the project — only to learn later that it had been "deprioritized." This sort of outcome isn't out of the ordinary at Amazon or at other tech companies, workers told *CNBC*. These sorts of stop-and-go projects are being assigned and shelved at such breakneck speeds, in fact, that they often go untested, the AI engineers said. And when the tools that do make it to market inevitably break, it's the engineers' job to fix it, often resulting in middle-of-the-night troubleshooting sessions between coworkers. Across companies, workers say that the general vibe is that their superiors are more interested in satisfying investors and keeping neck-and-neck with competitors than benefitting users. Others said their initial jobs didn't even have to do with AI to begin with, but were switched over from other teams without much training due to high demand. ## Trend Chasers Naturally, this sort of atmosphere doesn't exist in a vacuum. Time and again, we've seen the tech industry pivot from the next big thing to the other, with [AI replacing crypto]() in industry trends that, despite technical restraints and massive warnings of over-hype, CEOs are pouring money into as if it grows on trees. What's worse, because AI is theoretically supposed to be able to replace human labor, the heads of AI-investing companies are not just having their workers waste time on products that either don't work or won't be deployed, but also having them [build their own potential replacements](). The same Amazon engineer who lost his weekend to an ultimately kiboshed project told *CNBC* that it doesn't appear that higher-ups really care about *what* their subordinates are doing as long as they "tick a checkbox" — and do it fast. Translation: AI engineers are doing busywork because the people in their company's C-suites want to give [shareholders]() the illusion of progress, which is a surefire way to accelerate the bubble burst that the industry is [careening towards](). **More on the AI bubble:** [*AI Startups Are Suddenly In Big Trouble*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()