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Artisan, a tech start-up based in San Francisco and financed by Y-Combinator, produced a recent billboard in San Francisco that caused much controversy about the future of AI in the workforce. Following the “Stop Hiring Humans” strategy, the company offers AI-based software products to replace typical human positions like customer service, sales, call centres, and others with AI Employees called “Artisans.”
These words can provoke and get attention and cause various degrees of concern from city dwellers and online audiences.
Artisan’s chief executive, Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, said the stark nature of the advertisements was created solely to spark a discussion about society and the future of technology and work. Mottos like “Artisans won’t complain about work-life balance” or “The era of AI employees is here” are not mere promotions. They are a continuation of a more general discussion regarding the role of AI in everyday activity and work.
The response to Artisan’s campaign has been largely negative, with many people sharing their fear of losing their jobs to AI. In Bluesky and Reddit specifically, the users mentioned that AI replacing human jobs is worrisome, especially for a city that is already expensive and has a bad record in social inequality.
These billboards have evolved into a cultural signifier of escalating concerns regarding the place of AI in the future of work, especially the tech-driven future of work in cities like San Francisco.
Nonetheless, Artisan continued promoting its primary product, Ava, a sales Artificial Intelligence agent programmed to engage the customers with little human intervention. Stating the reduction of labour costs by 96%, Ava embodies the company’s perspective on the future of enterprise automation. However, there are concerns as artificial intelligence technology does not match the human touch in sales and customer service relations.
Future developments in AI at Artisan include the application of AI not only in sales but also in marketing, recruitment, finance, and design. While Ava is still the only product, they currently have on the market, plans to expand the range of AI services signal a distinct tendency towards the increased use of automation in different spheres of corporate activity.
This expansion raises questions over whether technological development creates more jobs or displaces them, a cause that continues to draw scrutiny in academic and professional areas.
