Samsung Electronics awarded its semiconductor workers an average bonus of 340,000 dollars for the first half of 2026. The payout reflects record profits from its memory chip division, driven by demand for artificial intelligence hardware. The bonus is equivalent to 50% of each employee's annual salary. The company reported a 78% surge in operating profit for the quarter ending March 2026.
Another day, another tech windfall. Samsung workers get half a year's salary as a bonus. Sounds great. But who pays for it? You do. Every time you use an AI service, every time a company trains a model, the money flows upward. The chips are the new oil. And the bonanza is not shared equally.
Meanwhile, the rest of us feed the machine. Our data trains the models. Our attention powers the ads. Our labor builds the infrastructure. The gap widens. The bonus is a symptom. A golden cage. We cheer for the workers. But the system remains unchanged. The AI boom enriches a few. The rest get the bill.