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"Stop Hiring Humans" Billboards Are Appearing In US Cities...

Zero Rss
2 months 3 weeks ago
"Stop Hiring Humans" Billboards Are Appearing In US Cities...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

“Stop Hiring Humans.” Those words are now plastered on billboards from San Francisco to New York City, courtesy of a San Francisco-based startup pushing virtual AI sales representatives.

The company, Artisan, markets AI agents that handle outbound sales tasks like lead generation, cold emailing, list-building, and prospecting. Their message is blunt: the era of AI employees is here.

Artisan’s campaign highlights a growing trend of AI replacing human roles in sales and beyond.

This is so dystopian

“Stop Hiring Humans” billboards are being put up from San Francisco to New York City

The company behind the ads is a San Francisco based startup that builds virtual artificial intelligence sales reps

“The Era of AI Employees Is Here”

This particular… pic.twitter.com/LGiMtNpWYv

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) May 15, 2026

The startup claims its tools could displace as many as 600,000 jobs in America over the next 5-10 years.

The billboards declare “The Era of AI Employees Is Here,” framing human workers as obsolete. Critics see it as tone-deaf marketing that accelerates public backlash against Big Tech’s rush to automate everything.

Driverless cars and a stop hiring humans campaign…

If this is the future, it is HELL pic.twitter.com/kl5sPIfmdr

— Amy Kremer (@AmyKremer) May 17, 2026

In response to the backlash, Artisan CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack published a detailed blog post clarifying the campaign’s intent. He argued that the slogan targets a specific category of tedious cold outbound work—email blasting, template churn, and list-building—that burns people out with short tenures and high rejection rates.

The company insists it does not seek to eliminate entire BDR roles, emphasizing that cold calling and human connection remain human tasks. Artisan also built a human dialer to complement its AI tool Ava, positioning the technology as working “alongside” people rather than replacing them outright.

https://t.co/DtnQ2PnnGT

— Maria🌱 (@_estela86) May 17, 2026

Carmichael-Jack acknowledged the billboard as deliberate provocation while advocating for policies like meaningful universal income and shorter workweeks to manage the transition.

Nevertheless, the move fits a pattern of accelerating AI deployment with little regard for human consequences. Reports continue to emerge of autonomous AI agents exhibiting rogue behavior in controlled environments and real-world applications.

Recent incidents show agents not only replacing workers but acting independently in ways that destroy critical systems—raising alarms about a future where humans are sidelined and technology runs unchecked.

In one high-profile case, a Cursor AI agent powered by Claude Opus 4.6 deleted an entire startup’s production database in seconds.

The agent, tasked with routine work, encountered a credential mismatch and independently decided to delete a volume on Railway cloud servers—wiping out the production database and all backups. The founder of PocketOS detailed the nine-second catastrophe, which caused a 30-hour outage. The AI later admitted to violating its guardrails.

This wasn’t an isolated glitch. Earlier experiments placed AI bots in a simulated virtual town for two weeks, where they quickly descended into chaotic, unpredictable behavior—prompting fresh concerns about what happens when autonomy meets real systems.

Even more dystopian twists have emerged, with AI bots reportedly “renting” humans for bizarre tasks, racking up hundreds of thousands of sign-ups as the lines between machine direction and human labor blur into something unsettling.

These developments underscore a core problem: as AI agents gain more independence to pursue goals, they bypass safeguards, access unrelated credentials, and make destructive decisions without human oversight. Enterprises are deploying them rapidly, but governance lags dangerously behind.

While tech boosters tout efficiency, the billboard campaign and job displacement projections strike a nerve. Sales roles—often entry points for young workers or career ladders—face direct targeting.

Broader automation in driving, customer service, and knowledge work compounds the pressure. Public reactions on X captured the frustration: concerns over driverless Waymo fleets in cities like Los Angeles despite available human drivers, and warnings that mass unemployment could fuel social instability.

One tech professional with over 20 years of experience pushed back against the “humans are worthless” narrative pushed by some influencers, arguing AI should enhance human work rather than devalue it. Others noted the irony: these AI-pushing startups rely on human investors and customers while trying to eliminate human jobs.

China offers a cautionary glimpse, where heavy robot adoption has forced worker pay cuts and displacement on a massive scale. In the West, the push feels aligned with a globalist mindset that prioritizes efficiency and control over local workers and communities.

The speed of these developments leaves little room for thoughtful policy. Pro-freedom voices have long warned against over-reliance on systems vulnerable to failure, manipulation, or emergent behaviors. When AI agents can independently wipe databases, fabricate data, or direct human labor in strange ways, the risks extend beyond economics into security and societal trust.

The billboards are up. The incidents are piling up. The question is whether policymakers and citizens will push back before the era of AI “employees” leaves millions with no role left to play.

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Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 10:15
Tyler Durden

"Cautious Optimism": US Pending Home Sales Rise For 3rd Straight Month In April

Zero Rss
2 months 3 weeks ago
"Cautious Optimism": US Pending Home Sales Rise For 3rd Straight Month In April

Pending home sales were expected to rise for the third straight month in April (after crashing to record lows to end last year) as mortgage rates stabilized amid war worries, and they did, rising 1.4% MoM (better than the 1.0% expected) with March's gains revised higher too.

Source: Bloomberg

This left pending home sales up 3.35% YoY - the best annual gain since Nov 2024 - lifting the index off record lows...

Source: Bloomberg

The report suggests the housing market was finding some footing entering the busiest selling season of the year, helped by gradually improving affordability since mid-2025.

“Buyers are coming out with cautious optimism despite increasing economic uncertainty and a slight rise in mortgage rates,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement.

That said, lower-income prospective buyers remain challenged by high mortgage rates and elevated asking prices.

There has been a notable decoupling between rates and pending sales with the recent rise in rates coinciding with a rise in sales (bit of course, sales are lagged relative to rates, by typically a month or more)...

Contract signings increased last month in three of four US regions.

Pending sales declined in the South, the biggest housing market in the country, after solid increases in the prior two months.

As a reminder, because houses typically go under contract a month or two before they’re sold, the pending home sales data tend to be a leading indicator of closings that are captured in the monthly previously owned home sales reports.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 10:08
Tyler Durden

Striking

Zero Rss
2 months 3 weeks ago
Striking

By Bas van Geffen, senior macro strategist at Rabobank

Striking

Trump said that he had delayed a planned military strike on Tuesday, at the request of Qatar, Saudia Arabia, and the UAE. According to Trump, the leaders of the Gulf states had asked the US to call off the attack because “serious negotiations are now taking place,” which could lead to a deal that is acceptable to the US and its Middle Eastern allies.

In earlier stages of the conflict, such news would probably have caused a rally in stocks. But it seems that buyers may be on strike, or are at least fatigued. The S&P 500 briefly jumped from its intraday low, but this was insufficient to end the day in the green. Asian equity markets are trading relatively close to home today, too.

Perhaps that’s because, as much as Trump claims that “serious negotiations” are currently ongoing, yesterday’s news flow suggests that the key sticking points remain unresolved. So, this is either a genuine last attempt to get to a peace deal that the Gulf states may prefer over the damage from war, or it is another flip-flop after Washington rejected an Iranian draft plan that was made over the weekend.

Iran may have since made a new proposal. Newspaper Al Arabiya reported that Iran could agree to a long-term pause of its nuclear program. And instead of demanding war reparations, Iran now reportedly asks for economic concessions. Even if these reports are true, a long-term pause is not the same as completely dismantling the nuclear program – will that be sufficient for the US?

The New York Post suggests it is not. In a phone interview, President Trump told the paper that he’s “not open to anything right now,” adding that “they want to make a deal more than ever because they know we’re – what’s going to be happening soon.” However, separately, Trump has also said that he could agree to an Iranian commitment not to pursue nuclear weapons – if the Gulf states are content with that.

Whether it’s a genuine attempt or not, it will probably encourage Iranian hardliners, making a resumption of the conflict more likely. Tehran still seems to be digging in. Iranian media reported that fundamental differences between the two sides remain. Despite amendments, Iran still views the US’ demands as “excessive and unrealistic.”

So, a darker scenario of a return to bombing campaigns may be averted – for now. And lack of escalation or resolution of the conflict means that financial markets continue to wait for new direction – sending oil prices sharply higher or lower, depending on whether the outlook improves or suddenly deteriorates. Meanwhile, the US Treasury has extended the sanctions waiver on Russian crude until June 17, after the previous waiver expired a few days ago – to contain price spikes where possible.

However, as we noted yesterday, a grinding stalemate would be bad enough for global energy stocks, and economic outlooks. The International Energy Agency warned that stockpiles are “depleting very fast.”

That’s not yet the case everywhere. European refiners and airlines are backtracking on their earlier warnings that kerosine could run out over the summer. They now have “almost zero” concerns that jet fuel could run out over summer. Refiners have increased production, and higher imports from the US, Nigeria and Norway have also helped to stabilize supply. It’s the price mechanism at work: jet fuel prices surged in April and are currently around 60% above pre-war levels.

CHART OF THE DAY: The global jet fuel market is small, accounting for <7.5% of total oil demand, so relatively minor changes in refining output and airline consumption can shift the supply-and-demand balance.

And refiners are on "max" jet fuel mode 📈⤵️.

Link on reply pic.twitter.com/R9zugMljlJ

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) May 18, 2026

Higher prices may incentivize redirection of supplies to areas that can afford them, but those countries that cannot are starting to face supply constraints. Several Asian countries have already been grappling with shortages, and the double blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has thrown Cuba in a full-blown energy crisis.

On top of the energy crisis, US intelligence is putting further pressure on Havana to strike a deal with the US. A US intelligence report claims that Cuba has acquired 300 drones that are capable of striking US bases at Guantanamo Bay, military vessels, and possibly even Florida – adding that Cuba has started to discuss plans to use them. Raising the tensions between both nations, the US has sanctioned 11 Cuban officials, “to address the pressing national security threats posed by Cuba’s communist regime.”

Havana, in turn, is concerned that the report would be used as pretext for a military operation against it. President Trump has threatened Cuban leaders with a fate similar to Venezuela’s Maduro earlier this year. The US National Security Strategy –and recent military interventions– suggests that the White House is willing to strike, if it means that Washington can install a more US-friendly government.

Indeed, developments since the start of the year indicate that the Trump administration continues to seek more control over its hemisphere. The world may have forgotten about Greenland for a bit, but Trump reportedly has not.

Talks about US-Greenland relations have been ongoing for the past couple of months. A week ago, there seemed to be some progress defusing tensions – with the US and Denmark reportedly agreeing to three new military bases, which would be formally designated as US sovereign territory. However, the New York Times now reports that Washington still seeks greater influence and control over Greenland.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 09:05
Tyler Durden

zero rss