The AI-related layoffs at Amazon and some other firms reflect a "hollowing out of middle-skilled workers," Lynn Wu, a professor of operations, information and decisions at the University of Pennsylvania, told ABC News.

Just as news outlets shared leaked Amazon documents suggesting the company could replace half a million warehouse jobs with robots, the e-commerce giant pulled the rug out and laid off 14,000 middle managers instead.

On social media and elsewhere, impacted employees and others reacted to Amazon's decision to cut 14,000 corporate and tech workers across numerous divisions.

Amid sweeping layoffs that began throughout ecommerce giant Amazon Tuesday, the company is making "significant" changes to its video games business.

Plus why you should take side quests at work, how workers are using AI to fake expense reports and the best employers for engineers in this week's Careers newsletter.

The other thing that makes this seem different from past layoffs is who is affected. Amazon has already optimized its warehouses. It isn’t cutting the workers who handle packages—in fact, the company plans to hire 250,000 seasonal employees to ramp up for the holidays.

Amazon said it will cut approximately 14,000 white-collar jobs as it seeks to gain efficiencies -- and as it prepares for advances in artificial intelligence in running the company.