Stephen Colbert mocks Amazon's plans to replace half a million jobs with robots

The "Late Show" host isn't buying the corporate jargon.
 By 
Sam Haysom
 on 
A man in a suit stands on a talk show stage, holding up one finger.
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The AI boom may be changing the meme landscape, but it also has people increasingly worried about their jobs — and seemingly with good reason. According to a recent report from The New York Times, Amazon has plans to make robots a big part of its workforce in the future.

"We just learned that Amazon plans to replace more than half a million jobs with robots," says Stephen Colbert in The Late Show clip above. "The news of Amazon's plan comes from a cache of internal strategy documents viewed by The New York Times. Wow, that's the kind of scoop you used to get at The Washington Post, if only Bezos hadn't changed their slogan from 'Democracy Dies in Darkness' to '20% Off Next-Day Delivery of Six-Pack Men's Ankle Socks.' [Amazon owner Jeff Bezos has owned The Washington Post since 2013.]

"According to the documents, in order to calm the worried workers, Amazon is avoiding terms like 'automation' and instead will be using terms like 'advanced technology,'" Colbert continued. "And to imply the AI workforce will collaborate with humans, they will replace the word 'robot' with 'cobot'. And instead of calling all that 'bulls**t', I will call that 'advanced livestock butt derivative.'"

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Sam Haysom

Sam Haysom is the Deputy UK Editor for Mashable. He covers entertainment and online culture, and writes horror fiction in his spare time.


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