“We are playing into the topical, ‘How does AI change hiring and jobs?” said CEO Daniel Lee, who started Nooks with fellow Stanford University students during the pandemic. The company sells software that automates parts of a salesperson’s job — like researching clients or following up on emails.
“Sales is human, and sales reps will continue selling in the future,” Lee said, and compared sales to a game of chess. “We’re playing the game alongside you, helping you think a lot less about manually making the moves and a lot more about the strategy and solving customer problems.”
Linear, a San Francisco-based company, took one of the most recognizable images in Western civilization — Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam — and instead of God reaching towards Adam, God’s hand now approaches a cluster of tiny cursor hands. Below, a message reads, “Agents. At your command.”
The company wanted to stay away from any message that suggested AI is replacing humans, COO Cristina Cordova said. Linear produces software for engineers and designers to work together on projects, and includes “agents” — virtual workers that do a lot of the coding themselves.
The billboards — like Linear’s product — are not meant for everyone, Cordova said. But she’s optimistic about a future where more people can build their own software when AI can deal with complex code.
“We want to position human beings as the source of intent, the decision makers, the ones who have taste and judgment,” Cordova said. Echoing her company’s Sistine Chapel-coded billboards, she said. “The human role is almost divine.”
Who regulates AI workers?
At a recent industry conference in New Delhi, OpenAI and ChatGPT chief Sam Altman told the press that automation has eliminated jobs multiple times in history. But it’s also created entirely new industries, he said. “We always find new things to do, and I have no doubt we will find lots of better ones this time.”
But there’s no guarantee that humans whose jobs are automated will actually find a new livelihood, said UC Los Angeles professor Ramesh Srinivasan, who studies the connections between technology and democracy.
“Where are the jobs and what are they going to look like?” he said. Without a clear picture of how humans will add value to the work AI takes up, he said. “What’s on the chopping block is the social contract where people are compensated for their labor.”
Srinivasan said the gig economy — rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft, for example — show how, without enough government oversight, tech innovations that promised to give workers more freedom actually create more precarious conditions.
During California’s 2020 election, Uber and other gig companies spent more than $200 million backing Proposition 22, a ballot measure allowing them to classify drivers as independent contractors rather than employees — exempting them from state labor protections such as minimum wage, overtime pay, and workers’ compensation. While backers of Proposition 22 promised the initiative would guarantee minimum earnings, many ride-hail drivers say their real wages have slipped.
