AI generated by a computer can take many forms. It’s increasingly marketed in the same way, with human names and personas, which make it seem less like code and feel more like a colleague. A growing number startups anthropomorphize AI to build trust quickly — and soften the threat it poses to human jobs. It’s dehumanizing and it’s increasing.
Now I understand why this framing has taken off. In today’s upside down economy, where each hire feels like a gamble, many enterprise startups — AI is not being sold as software by the accelerator Y Combinator. StaffThey’re selling replacements. AI assistants. AI coders. AI employees. The language is designed to appeal specifically to hiring managers who are overwhelmed.
Many don’t bother with subtlety. Atlogfor example, recently introduced a “AI employee for Furniture Stores” that handles everything from payment to marketing. It boasts that one good manager can now run up to 20 stores simultaneously. The implication is that you don’t have to hire more staff — just let the system scale itself. What happens to the 19 managers that it replaces remains unspoken.
Consumer facing startups are using similar tactics. Anthropic named their platform “Claude” as it is a warm and trustworthy sounding companion to a faceless, disembodied neuronet. It’s a strategy straight out of fintech, where apps like Dave and Albert masked their transactional intentions with approachable names. It’s easier to trust a friend when handling money.
This logic has been incorporated into AI. Would you rather share sensitive information with a machine-learning model or Claude, your best friend who knows you, greets and hugs you warmly and never threatens you? OpenAI still says you’re talking to a “generative pretrained transformer.”
We’re approaching a tipping-point. I’m really excited about generative artificial intelligence. Every new “AI employee”however, has become more dehumanizing. Every new ” Devin” makes me wonder when actual Devins in the world will resist being abstracted and turned into robots that replace jobs.
Generative AI has become more than a curiosity. Its impact is still unclear, but its reach is growing. Mid-May, 1.9 millions unemployed Americans received continued unemployment benefits – the highest number since 2021. Many of them were laid-off workers in the tech industry. The signals are piling.
Many of us remember “2001: A Space Odyssey” where HAL, the computer onboard, starts out as a calm and helpful assistant, before becoming homicidal, and cutting off life support for the crew. It’s science-fiction, but it struck a chord for a good reason.
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, predicted last week that AI would eliminate half the entry-level jobs in white collars within the next decade. One to five yearscan push unemployment up to 20%. “Most [of these workers are] are unaware that this is going to happen,” said he told Axios. “It’s crazy, and people don’t believe in it.”
Although you could argue that this isn’t comparable to cutting someone’s air supply, the metaphor isn’t that off. Automation will result in more layoffs, and the labeling of AI as “colleague” will look less clever.
The shift towards generative AI will happen regardless of how it is packaged. Companies can choose how to describe these tools. IBM never referred to its mainframes as “digital coworkers”. PCs were not “software assistants”they were workstations, and productivity tools.
Language still matters. Tools should empower. It feels like a mistake that more and more companies are promoting something completely different.
Instead of more AI “employees”we need software that makes humans more creative, productive and competitive. Please stop talking about fake employees. Show us the tools to help managers run complex businesses and individuals make a greater impact. It’s really all anyone wants.
Loizos began reporting on Silicon Valley in the late 1990s when she joined the Red Herring magazine. She was previously the Silicon Valley Editor at TechCrunch. In September 2023, she became Editor in Chief and General manager of TechCrunch. She is also the founder of StrictlyVC – a daily eNewsletter and Lecture Series acquired by Yahoo in 2023. It now operates as a subbrand of TechCrunch.
View Bio
