Advertisements that tell people to ‘stop hiring humans’ cover San Francisco streets.
The controversial posters have left people feeling outraged.
Billboards have been spotted around the city by a company called Artisan, who is marketing its software products as ‘AI employees’.
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And understandably not everyone was best pleased with the ads.
Robots replacing humans in the workforce is an issue that has been a growing point of contention for years.
Elon Musk even has his sights set on unleashing thousands of Tesla bots out into the world to take on mundane tasks.
This has the potential to put thousands of people out of work but it doesn’t look like the technology development is slowing down anytime soon.
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Many people took to social media to share images of the controversial advertisement, with a lot of others sharing their thoughts on it.
On Reddit, a user shared a collection of photos, one of them showing a homeless person sitting next to the ad.
Reacting to it, one user wrote: “Bro the juxtaposition of a homeless person and this ad on the first pic... now this is some s*** I'd see in a dystopian movie.”
Another replied: “I first thought this was a clever tongue in cheek way to put the spotlight on how AI is being oversold as a human employee replacement, but no, it is actually just plain advertising for some ChatGPT AI knock-off tools, crazy.”
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A third person commented: “Oh my god I thought this was a prompt. Like, dystopian AI ads in a post-human workforce world. Jesus Christ what marketing team creates this and doesn’t die a little inside?”
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A fourth wrote: “The ads aren't sarcasm or humor. They're a serious and non ironic play to take your job.”
And a fifth user added: “Honestly, the ‘Stop Hiring Humans’ ads all over SF have me thinking—maybe the future isn’t as far off as we think. If AIs can handle all the tasks that we’ve been doing for decades, maybe it’s time for a shift.
“Imagine a world where we’re not rushing to 9-to-5 jobs, fighting for parking, or battling over who’s getting the last cup of coffee in the break room.”
The CEO of Artisan, Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, has defended the messaging of the ad after speaking to SFGate.
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He said: “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.”