A couple of days ago, Microsoft announced 9,000 layoffs across its global workforce, impacting its engineering, Xbox, sales, and management teams. This move also affected various initiatives, resulting in the cancellation of at least three Xbox games, job cuts across various studios, and even the shuttering of one game studio, The Initiative. In the wake of this dark day in the the tech industry, a tone-deaf Microsoft executive urged laid off workers to turn to AI tools for emotional support.
Matt Turnbull, an Executive Producer at Xbox Game Studios Publishing, recently made a LinkedIn post, emphasizing that he'd be "remiss in not trying to offer the best advice" he could to laid-off workers in these trying times. This "best" advice is to turn to AI assistants like Copilot and ChatGPT for emotional support and to reduce cognitive load.
Continuing with the tone-deaf nature of his advice, Turnbull then laid out some prompts that affected workers could use to improve their situation. This includes prompts related to career planning, networking and outreach, and improvements to one's resume and LinkedIn profile. The executive then highlighted that no tool is a replacement for what a person is actually going through - as if that balances out everything he said prior -, but if people find his suggestions helpful, they should share it with the rest of the community.
It's the sort of LinkedIn post you would think is made up, but media outlet Aftermath managed to capture a screenshot of it before it was eventually deleted. Matt Turnbull has almost 25 years of professional experience under his belt - including 15 and counting at Microsoft. With over 15,000 layoffs being carried out at Microsoft in the past year or so, perhaps it's better to lay low at the company where seemingly no job is safe.
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