Tech layoffs are piling up, and the industry has found its favorite scapegoat: artificial intelligence.

Company after company is announcing workforce reductions with some variation of "we're restructuring to invest in AI." It sounds forward-thinking. It sounds inevitable. And in a lot of cases, it's complete nonsense.

Even Marc Andreessen — arguably Silicon Valley's most vocal AI cheerleader — is raising the alarm about what he calls "AI washing." That's when companies use AI as a convenient cover story for layoffs that are really about bloated headcounts, slowing revenue, or years of undisciplined hiring during the zero-interest-rate bonanza.

Let's be honest about what happened. Between 2020 and 2022, tech companies went on a hiring binge that would make a drunken sailor blush. Cheap money flowed, headcounts ballooned, and nobody asked hard questions about whether those roles were actually necessary. Now that interest rates are up and investors want to see actual profitability, the reckoning has arrived.

But telling your shareholders "we over-hired during a bubble" doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Telling them "we're pivoting to AI" does. It's narrative laundering, plain and simple.

That's not to say AI isn't transforming the workforce — it absolutely is, and some roles genuinely are being automated. But there's a massive difference between strategic restructuring around new technology and using a buzzword to dodge accountability for poor management.

Here in San Francisco, where tech employment is the lifeblood of the local economy, this distinction matters. Workers deserve to know the real reason they're being let go. Investors deserve honest communication about why costs are being cut. And the public deserves better than corporate press releases dressed up in futuristic language.

The next time a CEO announces layoffs "to double down on AI," ask a simple question: what specifically is AI doing that these employees were doing before? If the answer is vague, you're probably witnessing AI washing in real time.

Accountability isn't just for government. The private sector could use a dose too.