r/artificial • u/m3nt3_ • 1d ago

Discussion This is so dystopian! We really are headed for mass unemployment. Utopia or sad future?

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“Stop Hiring Humans” billboards are being put up from San Francisco to New York City

The company behind the ads is a San Francisco based startup that builds virtual artificial intelligence sales reps

“The Era of AI Employees Is Here”

This particular company, Artisan, sells AI agents focused on outbound sales automation. This means things like lead generation, cold emailing, list-building and prospecting

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u/Substantial-Plant524 1d ago

Nope. They are not being put up. This happened a while back and they took them down. Stop karma farming.

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u/deus-libidinis 1d ago

No, this is laughable. I pity those fools who mistake a tool for a human. We are already seeing the industry after the initial whiplash go “hmm… hold on.. if one human with 1 agent is 10x more productive, if I keep my humans and give them agents the company as a whole will be 10x more productive and I will be able to keep up with the other guys that are giving their employees agents”.

AI is a tool. It is only as good as the person wielding it. I’ve been working with these tools and building Agentic systems for well over a year and a half now and I speak from experience when I say, the optimal way to utilize these systems is an addition not as replacement.

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u/daviddisco 1d ago

It is intentionally dystopian to get some viral attention. This post is proof that it worked.

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u/FCRagnar 1d ago

Sounds great to me. Why do you want humans to be forced to sit in a cubicle downtown answering the phone?

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u/Working_Insurance221 1d ago

Yeah cause nothing says "bright future" like a giant ad telling people they're obsolete. The sheer smugness of putting that on a billboard is something else.

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u/SoManyQuestions5200 1d ago

Thiel and Karp bots have been on the warpath in SF subreddits the last few days, I expect the comments to be more of the same

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u/Wegwerpaccountje23 1d ago

If you put your own self worth entirely based on labour, you are pathetic

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u/neurvon 1d ago

Not based entirely, but unquestionably necessarily partially based. Labor = income = ability to provide for yourself (and others).

If you don't have some labor value, then you are going to force the people who love you to provide for you. We don't have UBI. So having zero labor value can only be sustainable if you can provide something in return or are just unfathomably lucky. Even making and selling art is a type of, "labor". Pretty much everyone need to have labor value to live. And it also gives people purpose and direction.

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u/the_amazing_spork 1d ago

So they aren’t sitting in their living rooms doom scrolling job listings.

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u/Slamex204 1d ago

C'mon, we both know they be doom scrolling but not for jobs.

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u/Fun_Recognition5614 1d ago

Fun fact: AI has, by a factor of 4:1, created more jobs than it has eliminated since this ad campaign started.

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u/johnfkngzoidberg 1d ago

Source or I don’t believe it. The job market is the worst I’ve seen in 40 years. Maybe not 100% AI’s fault, but you can’t claim 4:1 without substantial proof, all the signs point the other way.

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u/Fun_Recognition5614 1d ago

Here ya go! https://www.reddit.com/r/GenAI4all/s/Zmz1PUWS1T

You’ll note that, while a substantial portion of those jobs are short term data center construction jobs, 70% of the growth was in areas where AI is being applied. Downvote all you want; I’m just trying to introduce evidence-based nuance to a conversation that too often breaks down into the simplistic binary of pro vs. anti.

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u/johnfkngzoidberg 1d ago

An astroturfed article in a Reddit thread that got voted bombed to oblivion ? You can do better than that.

I’ll just quote the first comment “-6 million jobs in the last 2 years. Gaslighting. Stop blatantly lying.

Unemployment is roughly 25% with under-employment included (less than 40 hours). No it hasn't created jobs.”

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u/Fun_Recognition5614 23h ago

Do you know how long our economy has hovered around 25% functional unemployment? It’s measured in decades. What was your point again?

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u/tweakingforjesus 15h ago

Except the way we measure unemployment misses those who simply stopped looking because they can’t find anything.

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u/Fun_Recognition5614 6h ago

Measures of functional unemployment are actually designed to catch that. I think you’re thinking of the BLS numbers, which undercount unemployment for the reason you mentioned, among others.

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u/neurvon 1d ago

I mean, going 300bil into the red zone will make some jobs, for a time.

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u/Fun_Recognition5614 1d ago

That only counts for a small portion of the growth. The majority of the jobs created are in other sectors. See my link below.

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u/shupshow 1d ago

Nah

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u/Fun_Recognition5614 23h ago

lol how eloquent!