Most firms would consider experimenting with efficiency gains "R&D", which is investment. The AI companies under scrutiny here are gathering up as much compute as they can because people and companies are paying for it, and anybody pretending they're doing that for no reason is covering their eyes and ears.

> Laying people off offsets some of those expenses.

Layoffs are independent of AI. The impact of AI is that firms can do more with less, they are doing more with less, and when the economy supports them having more, they'll do more, not less.

> The firm exists to maximize wealth of its stockholders.

Deeply tired of hearing this type of argument. Your grandma is a stockholder. Your 401k is a stockholder. The Stockholders aren't some alien leech race. We've structured the economy so that the average person doesn't have to grow their own food; the result is stockholders, and it's not a scary word.

Ed is posturing to his explicitly anti-AI audience. Read any of his recent work on this topic and it's normal to feel embarrassed for agreeing with any of it.