On the contrary, you’ve been very helpful, thankyou. I’ve pushed a legal angle for a while for various niche reasons, with moderate success, but you’ve given me new inspiration for how i might be able to use that here. Sadly it’s nothing that can be as easily understood as a badly generated contractual clause, but that might buy me some time.
Thanks, I appreciate it. I knew this was likely to happen on the sooner side rather than later. I can’t say that the mediocre exit package they’ve given others is entirely unappealing either. Taking it is possibly a bad move in the longer term, but it’s not like I’d have a choice if I end up there.
The fact they’re hiring was one of the threads I was considering pulling, but the questions my colleagues have asked without knowing that context should already reveal some of the obvious issues with that. I’m unsure if there’s strategic value in showing this card up front instead of as a comment on their PR-manufactured response after they lose the ability to reply. I also wonder if revealing the fact I’ve looked at job listings might hurt my standing.
The aggression in my response (sales pitch, as you’ve rightly pointed out) is something I’ve been weighing up too. I have access to all the expensive blanding/branding AI models so it’s more trivial to conceal my resentment at the whole exercise than it used to be, but whether it’s possible to extract anything from them which I can counter is not something in which I have confidence.
I’m so tired of this world.
So it’s not quite a sneer, but i could use some help from the collective sneer brainstrust. If you’re willing to indulge me.
I work for one of those horrible places that is mainlining in its own AI koolaid as hard as it can. It has also begun doing layoffs, inspired in part by the “AI can do this now instead!” delusion. Now, I am in no way in love with my job nor the sociopaths I labor for, and it’s clear to me the feeling is mutual, but I am cursed with the affliction of needing to eat and pay for housing. I am also at a significant structural disadvantage in the job market compared to others, which makes things more difficult.
In an executive’s recent discussions with another company’s senior executive, my complicated, unglamorous and hugely underestimated small tech niche was raised as one of the areas they’ve swapped out for AI “with great success”. I happen to know this other company has no dedicated resource for my niche and therefore is unlikely to be verifying their swap actually works, but it will have the superficial appearance of working. I know they have no dedicated resources because they are actively hiring their first staff member for this niche and said so in a recent job advertisement.
Myself and my fellow niche serfs have been asked to put together a list of questions for this other company, and the intent is clearly a thin veil to have us justify our ability to eat. We’ve been highlighted this time, but it’s also clear other areas are receiving similar requests and pressure.
If you were to ask questions of a tech executive from a company which is using AI to pretend to fix a tech niche - but they are likely to believe they are doing so more than superficially and are able to convince other ignorant and gullible executives that they are doing so, what would you ask?
You’re right, I’m getting too cautious. Job listings aren’t unusual to see even when you’re not actively looking. Thanks!