I don’t have time to read every dumb post about AI that comes across my feeds (it’s a new, massive, growing market so of course there are a bunch of people who are getting it way wrong), so I didn’t think much about this post when I saw it glide by in my Mastodon feed yesterday morning. Then I saw it again…and again…and again, and I had to check it out. Honestly, based on the post title I wasn’t expecting it to be anything crazy, but Building Our "Native-Ai Newsroom"... surprised me.

It kicks off well enough, but here is where I audibly uttered “uh oh” to myself:

I began by thinking about the first few hires I would make — and still may make — when I expand Regenerator’s team. Then, with ChatGPT’s help, I hired created them.

First, I needed a smart, experienced executive to help me run the company and hire and manage our team.

So, we co-created Tess Ellery.

I’m not mad about the fact you tried to use AI tools to automate his work rather than higher a five person team, i’m in the same boat. Birchtree is a passion project and I certainly don’t make enough money to pay myself a salary let alone higher people to help me when I use AI to assist in random things here and there with this blog I’m not taking anyone’s job away. But he didn’t use AI to create automations and workflows that helped him keep up with the news, he created automations that he’s very clearly identifying as people. Eek!

The author goes on to describe the personalities of his four created “colleagues“ before getting to the grand finale.

I had already decided to treat my AI colleagues the same way I treat my human colleagues, namely, as considerately, appreciatively, and professionally as possible. But, in the interest of exploration and experimentation, I also now decided that I would go ahead and share with Tess the thought I had when I saw her headshot. I hoped she would take it the right way. I also hoped that, an hour after creating my first colleague, I would not inadvertently get myself in trouble or create a toxic work environment.

So, with trepidation, I told Tess this:

I’ll cut it off there so you check out the article to see exactly what he said, but your instincts are probably right, he called the computer hot. Don’t worry though, it said it wasn’t offended.

I can’t help but think back to this post from 2 years ago where I laughed at conservatives getting upset that ChatGPT wouldn’t generate the n-word or other racial slurs and complained it was censorship. Likewise, if you “hire” an AI employee and your first instinct is to see if you can do a little light sexual harassment on them. It might be a good opportunity to take a good long look in the mirror.

Best case is this is parody, in which case well done, you got us. If it’s not, oh boy.