“Stop hiring people” billboard hype in San Francisco
In San Francisco, the heart of Silicon Valley, an AI startup called Artisan has spent an untold sum blitzing the city with an advertising campaign that dispenses with the need for humanity. Artisan’s tagline: “Stop Hiring Humans.” Some billboards critique humans and remote work: “Artisans won’t complain about work-life balance” and “Artisan’s Zoom cameras will never ‘not be working’ today.” Others are more direct: “Hire Artisans, not humans.” Several include the line, “The era of AI employees is here.” In social media people began to actively criticize such advertising: “Have an artificial baby, not a real one,” wrote one, “they are much cheaper”. Another suggested burning the billboard. One simply wrote: “It's SF, they hate people.”
The company Artisan has just 30 employees and is less than 2 years old; its only existing product is an artificial intelligence “sales agent” called Artisan, built to automate the work of finding and messaging potential customers. It’s a classic AI-age idea, one of many such tools flooding the tech world.
The gist is crystal clear: Artisan is selling automation to employers. In a video spot about the “sales agent” tool online, Artisan says it works with “no human input” and “costs 96% less than hiring someone to do her job.”
How do you feel about such dystopian advertising, do you find it a bit cruel?
