Can we really stop hiring humans?
On Christmas Day, ironically, a post appeared in my Instagram feed screaming, “Stop Hiring Humans!”
The image below was the one that stopped me.
Who in their right mind plasters stop hiring humans all over San Francisco? A city with 8323 sheltered or unsheltered humans. I shuddered at the lack of thought or compassion, recalling how I felt seeing the city’s homeless people in 2000; so different from my suburban life in Sydney.
Unhired people.
According to Business Cloud the stop hiring humans campaign is promoting ‘Ava, a digital sales representative who is described in an Artisan AI social post as “an AI BDR (business development rep) on steroids… she’s available to hire now”. The article also says: ‘Other messages from the billboard campaign to cause a storm on social media include: ‘Artisans won’t complain about work-life balance’; ‘Artisans won’t come into work hungover’; ‘Artisans are excited to work 70+ hours a week’; ‘the era of AI employees is here’; ‘hire Artisans, not humans’ and more.
Stop hiring humans? Whaaaat? 😳
Is this truly the future we want to create?
Before you judge me: No, I am not a Luddite. Yes, AI can be useful and is inevitable. But FFS, let’s take a moment to consider its uses before steamrolling ahead.
Curiosity amped, I had to know who was behind this tasteless stop hiring humans clickbait. I shook my head when I saw it was a 23-year-old Brit – who has raised a staggering $21.1 million – as I wondered what kind of a future he wishes for his fellow Gen Z and Alphas.
Digging, I found his LI post saying, ‘In the past week, our “Stop Hiring Humans” billboard campaign has organically generated 10s of millions of impressions, millions of likes, 1000s of death threats, 100s of articles and our biggest growth months ever. Was it worth it? Yes.’
He referred people to his article: before stating that potential clients were not appalled (!!) he wrote, ‘We didn’t expect people to get so mad. The goal of the campaign was always to rage bait, but we never expected the level of backlash we ended up seeing. Looking forward, we’ll likely tone down the messaging to be more in line with what we actually believe rather than just clickbaiting..!’
Rage bait.
The messaging is more in line with what we actually believe… !!!!!!! 🤬
Seeing how swiftly social media was weaponised in the recent smear campaign launched against Blake Lively, I feel so grateful to be Gen X and to remember a time of less mis- and disinformation. My intuition detects BS a mile off, too.
However, I am concerned for those who lack curiosity or critical thinking because there are company leaders right now thinking Artisan – or its hundreds of competitors that don’t lie for clickbait – are the future to “do more with less” and line their and their shareholder’s pockets.
Now, more than ever, you must seek the truth.
Smelling 🐂💩
In the founder’s own words, “We don’t actually want people to stop hiring humans – we’re actively hiring across all roles, and I don’t actually think AI is dystopian. The real goal for us is to automate the work that humans don’t enjoy and to make every job more human. Nobody wants to spend 8 hours a day researching people and writing outbound emails, so we built Ava to do it for them.”
Of course, Ava is female 🙄 but ignoring the sexism the tool cannot replace humans because all it does is research and write outbound messages. (…is that all SDRs do?)
Haris and Zeth, in the post’s comments, made the argument for me:
Thank you, Zeth! Sense at last. ‘I do not respond to the insane amount of junk mails I get.’
How many of your hyper-personalised and relevant messages are ignored? As I’ve been saying for well over a decade, finding people is easy but getting them to engage is hard. It’s only going to get worse as our feeds and inboxes swell with AI-generated blandness.
Choose wisely where you implement AI
What made a prospect reply? Ask them. What do applicants want from a hiring process? Ask them! What do interviewees want more of? Ask them! What do hiring managers want? Ask them! If and only if the vendor’s agenda matches the experience people state they want – and it also saves the company time, money and hassle – go for it.
If you can’t ask candidates, read reviews and Recruiting Hell on Reddit. You’ll find kindness and communication rank high.
Whatever you do, remember this intentionally misleading vendor campaign. Just as you look for evidence of suitability and fit in your candidates, look for it in the technology.
Human connection
It is ridiculous to think that a company would stop hiring humans altogether but also naive to think they will retain an employee who doesn’t flex the human skills AI cannot replicate.
Currently, there are fewer places available in talent acquisition. HR tech vendors want to reduce that further by automating parts of your job. Teams are getting leaner and if company leaders can reduce headcount, they will.
If you act robotic, company leaders and managers will consider replacing you first.
If you people please, you will be less valuable to the company.
If you take things at face value, you are not being an asset to your company.
If you are inauthentic, candidates will disengage leaving you vulnerable.
Make 2025 a year of building and flexing your AI-proof human skills because authenticity and connection are going to matter more than ever in the sea of mis- and disinformation.
P.S. If you want any help becoming a valuable and strategic talent acquisition partner, hit me up (and share Braincamp with your People & Talent leaders).
