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New York Post
14 hours ago
- Business
- New York Post
‘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. 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. 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. '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. 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.'
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Stop hiring humans? Business leaders face AI labour arbitrage
Advertising almost always appeals to the aspirational. But AI platform, has bucked this convention by plastering fear all over the London Underground. The provocative strapline 'Stop Hiring Humans: The Age of the AI Employee is Here' is part of a poster adverting campaign on London's public transport that taps into deep public mistrust that AI will replace human work. The Stop Hiring Humans ad campaign coincided with London Tech Week (9 June), opened by Prime Minister Keir Starmer who acknowledged the skepticism around AI job displacement, citing social fear of AI as an even bigger barrier to adoption than regulation. Starmer, nevertheless, urged the audience of technology professionals and business leaders, 'I think we have to lean in', as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, with whom he shared the stage, urged the audience to view AI as a great equaliser. "The way you program AI is the same way you program a person,' said Huang, noting that almost anyone can program AI because while not everyone can code, everyone knows 'human'. Huang's point was intended to be a reassuring reminder that an AI future is accessible to all. But the UK's Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) warns of an AI job apocalypse in which eight million jobs in the UK could be at risk due to AI advancements. The report highlights that, as of March 2024, AI affected 11% of tasks performed by UK workers, a figure that could rise to 60% as organisations further integrate AI technologies. Starmer's very presence at the event demonstrates just how important the technology industry, and AI, have become to the nation's global competitiveness. Starmer noted that in 2023 the UK's AI sector grew 30 times that of any other sector. With such dynamic growth, a propensity to underplay the associated risks may well be expected. In June, IBM published a survey of 2,000 CEOs from 33 countries and 24 industries carried out between February and April 2025 which found that 58% say they are pushing their organisation to adopt generative AI more quickly than some people find comfortable, and 64% recognise the potential productivity gains are so great they must accept significant risk to stay competitive. Cloud customer service platform Zendesk's CEO Tom Eggemeier says that among the company's clients to have heavily invested in AI driven automation, hiring has actually increased by 3% on average. And while Eggemeier predicts 80% of customer service enquiries will be automated by 2030, this has not meant job displacement – so far. 'A lot of companies are taking savings from automation and reinvesting it into humans to do more sophisticated tasks, and interacting at the root cause of problems. We haven't seen any labour force decrease materially,' he says, adding: 'It could in the future.' To date, GenAI has not significantly impacted the workforce, despite widespread concerns, says GlobalData principal analyst, Isabel Al-Dhahir, because GenAI tools have yet to demonstrate the requisite level of autonomy and Al-Dhahir says the emergence of agentic AI and advanced reasoning models will notably impact workforce structures, as this is among its intended purposes. 'Numerous startups focused on agentic AI, with an emphasis on enhancing workplace efficiency, cite the reduction of headcount growth as one of their principal advantages,' she says. On 9 June, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly referred to AI as precipitating a 'white-collar bloodbath', predicting that half of entry level roles will be eliminated by 2030. Just as 'Stop Hiring Humans' advertising campaign grabbed public attention, so too do the gloomy assertions of public figures like Amodei. But Anthropic's own research, published in Feb 2025, demonstrates a much more nuanced and far less certain outlook. Analysing millions of conversations on Anthropic's the company's research sought to demonstrate empirical AI usage patterns. To Dahir's point on role augmentation versus role automation, the analysis revealed that this difference matters for both workers and productivity. 'When AI serves as an augmentative partner rather than a replacement, studies have shown improved productivity while maintaining individuals' meaningful engagement in their work,' according to the report. The report demonstrated that current usage splits nearly evenly between automation (43%) and augmentation (57%) of human capabilities. The research is careful to note that these findings only describe the very early cycle of AI transformation the market is currently in. 'As AI systems expand beyond text to handle video, speech, and physical actions through robotics, and as AI agents become more capable of carrying out extended tasks autonomously, the nature of human-AI collaboration is poised to transform dramatically,' according to the report. New tasks and even entirely new occupations may emerge around these capabilities, according to the report, something that is repeatedly offered by tech leaders as a leap of faith antidote to fears around job displacement. But Al-Dhahir warns: 'If tech leaders become overly reliant on their new digital colleagues, they risk overlooking opportunities for new job creation where humans remain the superior choice. C-suite strategy should therefore not be focused exclusively on where AI can improve its operations, but also on how necessary human skills will be complementary,' adds Al-Dhahir. The research also found peak usage of AI in mid-to-high wage occupations, with 'notably lower usage at both extremes of the wage distribution' which does, indeed, reflect Amodei's public rhetoric around the loss of white-collar work. There are some instances where AI augmentation can fill an employee void. Zoom's head of solution engineering for EMEA, Helen Hawthorn, sees AI as an invisible colleague to take on the routine tasks that keep employees from focusing on their core roles. Hawthorn notes the example of where companies have eliminated executive assistant roles and employees are overwhelmed with additional administrative tasks. 'Executive assistant roles are either disappearing, or they've disappeared already. Companies are saying, you now do it. That's actually meant longer days for most people,' says Hawthorn. 'A virtual executive assistant means you're not having to work every day of the week,' she adds noting that this leaves more time for higher value work. Hawthorne's point tallies with Anthropic's research which identified a pattern of AI currently affecting only a subset of tasks within jobs, suggesting occupations will evolve rather than disappear. 'However, if the breadth of task usage grows without signs of saturation, that may suggest the possibility of a more comprehensive workplace transition,' according to the report. Even if tech leaders choose to implement AI for augmentation rather than full automation of roles, gaining employee trust is a continuing challenge. The risk of employee backlash, and the optics of wholesale layoffs in favour of automation, are real. In April, Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke announced that employees requesting more resources would need to prove they 'cannot get what they want done using AI,' according to an internal memo posted to X. The best AI implementation route focuses on enabling the people who can turn uncertainty into action, says Aleksandra Osipova, an AI strategist and founder of Apricity Lab. "Imagine two scenarios. One: you buy the tools, hire the agency, and your team watches from the sidelines, disconnected, anxious, and increasingly you upskill your existing talent. You give them the structure, support, and green light to experiment. Now they're not just using AI, they're building with it. They're creating internal solutions, launching new initiatives, and exploring entirely new revenue streams," says Osipova. "The best strategy in a fast-moving market is not automation, it's activation. Your best people are already in the room. Give them momentum,' she adds. Lütke's strategy was a little more heavy handed. 'What would this area look like if autonomous AI agents were already part of the team? This question can lead to really fun discussions and projects,' Lütke asked his employees along with adding AI usage questions to performance and peer reviews. None of which went any way to addressing the fear that their employer might, one day, stop hiring humans. "Stop hiring humans? Business leaders face AI labour arbitrage" was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
