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The billboards for Artisan AI have been appearing across San Francisco with various taglines that include “Stop Hiring Humans”.A San Francisco startup has plastered the city with controversial billboards urging companies to replace people with “AI employees.”
Artisan AI has emblazoned the ads on bus shelters, on the side of buildings, and on classic billboards above freeways. The ads which feature a humanized AI bot called “Ava” have various messages attached to them including “Hire Artisans, not humans”; “Aritsan’s Zoom cameras will never ‘not be working’ today”; “Artisans won’t complain about work-life balance”; and “Hire Arisans, not humans.”
The controversial campaign has ruffled locals’ feathers with some taking to Reddit with the title, “Human-designed billboard wants people to stop hiring humans…”
Hire Artisans pic.twitter.com/9f2LMYtc0m
— Jaspar Carmichael-Jack (@jasparcjack) November 9, 2024
Gizmodo notes that Artisan AI sells software that assists with customer service and sales workflow. The company says its “sales agent” tool works with “no human input” and “costs 96 percent less” than hiring a human to do the same job.
The company’s CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack defended his company’s marketing blitz that has the tagline: “Stop Hiring Humans.”
“They are somewhat dystopian, but so is AI,” Carmichael-Jack tells SFGate. “The way the world works is changing.”
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
Many of the ads feature a human figure called “Ava” which Artisans says will herald the “beginning of the next industrial revolution.”
“People still want to work with humans, and working with our Ava feels more like working with a human than a [software-as-a-service] product, so it makes sense for us to humanize her,” Carmichael-Jack tells SFGate.
Capitalizing on AI Fears
The clever marketing campaign by Artisan is designed to irritate. Fears that AI will take over are keenly felt; no more so than in photography.
Earlier today, PetaPixel exclusively interviewed a Shutterstock director who sought to reassure photographers by saying photographers have a “vital role” to play in the future of AI technology. Essentially, generative AI will always need fresh content if it is to remain relevant.
Image credits: Artisan AI.
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