Avi Gabbay warns AI layoffs are hitting home, jokes about founding an AI-free state

In a weekly column for Yedioth Ahronoth’s Israel Hayom, media personality Avi Gilad says Israel’s artificial intelligence boom is no longer just an abstract labor-market issue, it has become personal. He writes that the wave of layoffs in the economy and AI’s growing role have already affected his own family, calling it a troubling development.

Gilad frames the issue as a broader existential question for workers who are being forced to rethink their careers as machines take over tasks once done by people. He asks what everyone will do for work if automation keeps expanding, and notes that even supposedly safe jobs may not be appealing to everyone. “They say plumbers will never be laid off, but I hate opening clogged sewage pipes. What will I do? What will you do? What will you work at?” he writes.

As a tongue-in-cheek escape from the digital problem, Gilad says he has an idea for a state without artificial intelligence, an idea he says was suggested by a chatbot using the same technology he is criticizing. He adds that he has already found a leader for such a place, “Claude, only Claude!”