WTF?! Most artificial intelligence companies don't like to publicize the fact that generative AI is going to cost a lot of jobs. They tend to talk about how it assists people, allowing them to do other tasks (looking for another job as they're about to be fired, for example). But a San Francisco AI startup isn't hiding the truth with an advertising campaign that has the tagline, "Stop Hiring Humans." Unsurprisingly, a lot of people aren't happy about it.
Backed by startup accelerator Y-Combinator, Artisan sells customer service and sales workflow software. It's one of several companies that sells products it describes as AI employees, or "Artisans," in this case.
– Jaspar Carmichael-Jack (@jasparcjack) November 2, 2024
AI agents taking human jobs is a contentious topic, one which companies behind the technology tend not to discuss. However, Artisan is not only pushing this element as the company's main selling point in its San Francisco ads, it's also doing so by highlighting how AI is better than lazy, stupid people who like a drink.
One poster gleefully exclaims that Artisans won't complain about work-life balance or come into work hungover, another states that Artisan's Zoom cameras will never 'not be working' today.
Hire Artisans pic.twitter.com/9f2LMYtc0m
– Jaspar Carmichael-Jack (@jasparcjack) November 9, 2024
"Hire Artisans, not humans," is one soullessly crushing tagline. "The era of AI employees is here," is another. The most on-the-nose is simply "stop hiring humans," which makes one wonder if any humans work at Artisan – SFGate reports that it has 30 employees and is less than two years old, so perhaps some of them will find themselves replaced by an AI soon.
Artisan's Ava sales agent is said to have a distinct personality, participate in Slack meetings, and improve its performance over time, all without human input. The company emphasizes that Ava costs 96% less than hiring someone to do the same job.
Ava appears to be the only Artisan right now, though there are plans for more and to expand outside of sales to marketing, recruitment, finance, and design.
So this was a huge booth at entrance of the event. The irony of calling consolidated software artisans 😭 https://t.co/z958biAOfY pic.twitter.com/JdtWT6Z6Hf
– Jingna Zhang (@zemotion) October 30, 2024
Artisan CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack defended the ads. He told SFGate that they "are somewhat dystopian, but so is AI."
"The way the world works is changing." He added: "We wanted something that would draw eyes – you don't draw eyes with boring messaging."
It's all arguably top-level trolling on Artisan's part, and it's certainly helped the startup get plenty of attention. It could backfire, of course, especially if potential customers fear reputational damage from being associated with a company that's riled so many people.
