‘Stop Hiring Humans' Viral AI billboard campaign sparks outrage in NYC
If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere — as long as you're not human.
Dystopian billboards have popped up across Manhattan urging businesses to 'stop hiring human,' and some people are vowing to fight the rise of the machines.
'Rip them down' raged one observer on a Reddit post showing one of the billboards in Times Square. 'Vandalizing has never felt so right' wrote another.
5 An AI takeover? A massive Times Square billboard from Artisan AI urges businesses to 'Stop Hiring Humans' — part of a viral stunt that's turning Manhattan into a battleground over the future of work.
Artisan.co
On TikTok, a viral clip asked, 'Would you work with an AI coworker? Or better yet — would you trust one?'
And on Instagram, one user wrote: 'This ad I saw in New York hit me like a truck … Entire industries are being reshaped. We can resist it, fear it… or face it head-on.'
The resistance can breathe easy — the posters are part of a viral stunt from Artisan AI, a San Francisco startup that sells virtual 'employees' such as Ava, an AI-powered sales rep.
5 Meet Ava — your new AI sales rep. Artisan wants companies to interview its digital workers like this one, who's currently smiling from bus stops across Midtown.
J.C. Rice
The campaign launched in California last year and hit the Big Apple last month according to co-founder and CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack who told The Post the company spent less than $50,000 on placements across Manhattan, including in Times Square and along the High Line.
But the real goal wasn't visibility — it was virality.
'The biggest play with the campaign is not actually the people who see it from the street,' Carmichael-Jack said. 'It's when people take pictures and repost it and share it. That's when we go viral.'
5 Artisan AI co-founders Sam Stallings, left, and Jaspar Carmichael-Jack faced a wave of backlash after the campaign launched — including thousands of death threats.
Artisan.co
The company estimates the NYC rollout has generated hundreds of millions of online impressions, outperforming its earlier campaigns in San Francisco and London.
Artisan's original ads with softer slogans like 'Be more productive' and 'Upskill with AI' flopped, Carmichael-Jack said. But when the company leaned into bolder lines like 'Stop hiring humans,' 'Artisans won't complain about work-life balance' and 'Artisans won't come into work hungover,' the internet lit up.
5 A California billboard featured a deliberate typo — 'Stop Hirring Humans.' The viral moment was part of a broader campaign that has helped Artisan generate $5 million in revenue.
Artisan.co
'It's designed to start conversation and stir public interest,' he said. 'When we say something controversial, everyone engages.'
The campaign has caught the attention of labor advocates and marketing experts — some critical, others intrigued.
'Campaigns like this force us to confront our attitudes towards human workers,' said Ifeoma Ajunwa, a law professor at Emory University and author of 'The Quantified Worker.'
5 Artisan's virtual worker Ava may be the face of the campaign — but the company is still hiring real people, with more than two dozen open jobs posted online.
Artisan.co
Despite the message, Artisan is actively hiring humans — for now. More than two dozen job postings appear on the company's LinkedIn.
'We believe in hiring humans,' he said. 'Just hiring [them] for work that humans actually want to do.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
4 hours ago
- CNBC
36-year-old travels the world in a Toyota Tacoma: After 3 years on the road, this is her No. 1 takeaway
In 2015, Ashley Kaye's father died and she inherited her childhood home in Waterford, Wisconsin. At the time, she was 27 years old, working in corporate healthcare and transitioning to a consulting job, where she worked 80 to 100 hours a week. "I worked from home, so I just walked from my bedroom to my office to the kitchen and repeat," Kaye, now 36, tells CNBC Make It. "I was a zombie in those times," While traveling, Kaye met someone on a scuba diving trip in Honduras who helped her realize what she wanted was to leave her career behind and travel full-time. "We just hit it off and chatted the whole time I was there. We spoke about the worst of the worst, the best of the best, and financials, too," Kaye says. "He told me he wished he had done it sooner because it's so much easier and cheaper than you think. That changed everything for me. I went home and worked more and more until I quit the next year." Kaye spent the next three years traveling during the covid-19 pandemic. While on a trip to South Africa, she received unexpected news that her aunt was ill and she'd need to fly back home to Wisconsin. "That flight was probably the moment where not a single ounce of my being was like 'Yay, I'm going home.' It was like, 'I don't want to be here. This isn't it for me.'," she says. "I love being on the islands. I love having the ocean near me. That took away the hesitation I had in previous years about selling the house." While Kaye was back home caring for her aunt, she prepared her childhood home for sale and considered her next move. She thought a lot about trying van life and living and traveling with her dog. "Traveling by plane with a dog just sounded like a terrible idea," she says. "I do a lot of photography, so I knew I wanted something where I could reach tougher destinations." While waiting for the sale of her home to close, a couple reached out to Kaye on Instagram to ask about her time in South Africa. They shared their experience overlanding in a Toyota truck with a camper in the truck bed. Overlanding is a form of self-reliant travel that involves adventuring to remote destinations, typically in a vehicle of some type. After doing a bit of her own research, Kaye was all-in and purchased a Toyota Tacoma truck for $42,934, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Kaye picked up the truck in South Dakota and drove it back to Wisconsin to finish packing up her home when it officially sold in March 2023. Now that her new home was the truck, Kaye set off on her first adventure: A drive down to Baja California, Mexico. She stayed there for three months and planned out the renovations she would need to make the truck more livable. "My life is kind of like 'the plan is there is no plan.' Most people plan this type of adventure for years. I didn't even have a truck when I accepted the offer on my house," she says. "It was very spur of the moment, so I needed to take a pause and figure things out." While living in Mexico, Kaye found an American company that made the truck bed replacements that would provide external storage and make it easier for her to live and travel in the Toyota Tacoma. But, the installation couldn't happen until September. In the meantime, Kaye learned as much as she could about the truck and the kind of camper she would need. She estimates that she has spent over $50,000 on the renovations. Costs included purchasing a camper, adding solar power, replacing the truck bed, upgrading the suspension, new tires, customizing a bumper, and installing an electric cooler. When the truck was ready, Kaye decided to journey the Pan-American Highway, starting in Denver. The highway stretches from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina. "It's really an incredible way to travel because you get to set your own pace and if you find somewhere that's beautiful and peaceful you can stay as long as you want," Kaye says. "But there's pros and cons to every mode of travel and a lot of red tape and logistics crossing borders. It can be exhausting, especially when you're alone. You have to find a balance that works for you, but overall, it's definitely one of the coolest adventures of my lifetime." Since living and traveling in the truck full-time, Kaye has visited Mexico, every country in Central America, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and parts of Argentina. In total, she's been to over 20 countries so far. "I don't want to be a cliché and say it's a dream life because it's a lot of work and there are a lot of things that you need to take care of and maintain," she says. "But it's really incredible to be able to wake up and just look at the map and say, 'Should I go sleep inside this volcano or go to the jungle or go to the beach?' You have a lot of really beautiful options, so I can't really complain." After all this time on the road, Kaye says the biggest lesson she's learned is that life is too short. "Ever since I started traveling, [I learned] life is just too short. You don't have to go and quit your career to travel the world but whatever your dreams and goals are in life just start now and everything else is just figuring out a goal," she says. Kaye says when she was younger, it was her dad who taught her that she was capable of anything. "I grew up with my dad raising me and telling me every day 'You can be anything you want when you grow up and you can do anything,'" she says. "He was 57 when he passed away, so he never even got to retire. His passing taught me how to live life because you never know how much time you have in life."
New York Post
8 hours ago
- New York Post
Pelosi added millions to net worth last year: report
She might be the She-Wolf of Wall Street. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) raked in between $7.8 and $42.5 million in 2024 — meaning her estimated net worth with venture capitalist hubby Paul Pelosi could now top out at $413 million, new financial disclosures showed. The staggering sum is an eye-popping jump from 2023, when financial disclosures showed the couple's net worth topping out at a possible $370 million. Advertisement 4 The Pelosi's added between $7.8 and $42.5 million to their net worth in 2024. Getty Images Pelosi's exact net worth is not known because lawmakers are only required to disclose ranges. Market research firm Quiver Quantitative, which estimates a single figure based on daily stock values it tracks, placed the pair's 2024 worth at $257 million — up $26 million from a year earlier. Advertisement But the value of their various other ventures — which include but are not limited to a Napa Valley winery, ownership in a political data and consulting firm and a stake in a Bay area Italian restaurant — mean Pelosi's worth could be far higher in the estimated range. A large chunk of the couple's fortune has come from a sizable stock portfolio and timely trades, all done in Paul Pelosi's name. The former House Speaker, who's so infamous for trading Missouri Rep. Josh Hawley named a bill after her, and her husband dumped 5,000 shares of Microsoft stock worth an estimated $2.2 million in July — one of their largest sales in three years — a few short months before the FTC announced an antitrust investigation into the tech giant. They also sold 2,000 shares — worth an estimated $525,000 — of Visa stock, less than three months before the credit card company was hit with a DOJ monopoly lawsuit. Advertisement 4 Some have nicknamed Pelosi the 'Queen of Stocks.' Getty Images for The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Their best trade though might have been exercising a call option in December they bought in late 2023 at an estimated premium of $1.8 million, allowing them to nab 50,000 shares of hot AI chip stock NVIDIA for $12 a pop — less than one tenth of its market price. In total the couple paid an estimated $2.4 million for the investment, which on paper is now worth more than $7.2 million. NVIDIA wasn't their only AI play of 2024. Advertisement The couple also paid between $600,000 and $1.25 million for a call option on California cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks in February, the same week it was revealed the White House briefed lawmakers on a serious national security threat related to Russia. The shares rose close to 20% in the days after the move. 4 A bill aiming to ban lawmakers and their spouses from trading individual stocks was named 'The PELOSI Act.' Jack Forbes / NY Post Design The option allowed the pair to scoop up 14,000 shares of Palo Alto in December at a $100 strike price — half its trading value. The company has been crushing earnings over the past year and the investment is now worth around $2.8 million. But the Queen of Stocks did suffer one setback — when she and Paul Pelosi ditched 2,500 shares of former Department of Government Efficiency boss Elon Musk's Tesla in June, losing somewhere between $100,000 and $1 million on the trade. In all, their investment portfolio pulled in an estimated 54% return in 2024, more than double the S&P 500's 25% gain — and beating every large hedge fund, according to numbers in Bloomberg's end-of-year tally of hedge funds' returns. 4 Pelosi and her good fortune have been at the center of arguments about why Congress shouldn't be allowed to trade stocks. Ron Sachs – CNP for NY Post The formidable profits come amid growing calls to ban Congress from trading individual stocks, arguing lawmakers have access to market-moving information ahead of the public. Advertisement Pelosi in the past rejected calls for a ban, stating 'we're a free‑market economy.' She has since softened her stance in the face of growing criticism. When asked in May whether Congress should pass a trading ban, she replied, 'If they do, they do.' 'Speaker Pelosi does not own any stocks, and she has no prior knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions,' a spokesperson told The Post. The couple is already off to a rocking 2025. Advertisement In January, they bought call options for then-little-known artificial intelligence health firm, Tempus AI, which has since inked a $200 million deal with AstraZeneca and doubled its stock price. The couple also took out call options for energy company Vistra — whose stock climbed last month after it unveiled a massive $1.9 billion deal to acquire natural gas facilities across the country from a private equity firm, citing rising US power demand.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Meta Warns Iran May Block WhatsApp Amid Snooping Allegations
Meta (META, Financials) expressed concern that Iran may move to block WhatsApp following claims by Iranian state media that the messaging platform is being used by Israel for surveillance. The U.S. tech company strongly denied the allegations, calling them false reports, and warned they could be used as a pretext to restrict access to its services at a critical time. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with META. Meta said, We're concerned these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most. The company emphasized that WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, meaning that neither Meta nor third parties can access the contents of messages. It also clarified that it does not track users' exact locations or log who is messaging whom. The statement came in response to Iran's state-run IRNA urging citizens to delete WhatsApp, claiming the Zionist regime is exploiting the app to gather private data. In a broadcast shared by Rudaw, an IRNA host warned viewers about potential surveillance targeting individuals linked to sensitive sectors, including nuclear science. While Meta confirmed it does not provide bulk data to any government, it acknowledged that metadatasuch as contacts and device informationcan be shared under specific legal requests. Meta also pointed to over a decade of transparency reports outlining such disclosures. WhatsApp, along with Instagram, was previously banned in Iran in 2022 during nationwide protests. That ban was lifted two months later as part of reforms introduced by President Masoud Pezeshkian to expand internet freedoms. This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
