Perplexity CEO offers to replace striking NYT staff with AI
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
It's one thing to make it an eventual goal to replace workers with AI, it's another to step in and say "hey, our AI can be your labour" when there is a labour dispute in progress. Saying nothing was the correct response, or even "if AI was your labour, this wouldn't happen". But to offer to replace a striking workforce is super shitty.
The Times is suing Perplexity. This is a publicity stunt. From the looks of it a damn successful one.
It's an enterprise play.
Not sure what makes this 'successful
You're talking about it.
Also highlights to Perplexity's enterprise customers (who is their primary market) their value.
> You're talking about it.
I love these kinds of arguments. If we think the marketing isn’t working then we’re not important enough to matter, but then also the fact that we’re talking about it matters and shows that it’s working.
You aren't a persona who is targeted at all by Perplexity's product.
It's not a B2C or individual DevTool.
They've raised their Series A and B for an Enterprise Sales (ie. F1000 and strategics) motion.
This doesn't read to me as it's interpreted in the headline. Perplexity is not an AI software engineer product, it's an AI powered search engine with an election monitoring page[1]. To me it sounds like he's offering Perplexity's homepage as a platform for NYT to cover the election on, not that he's offering to replace NYT workers with AI. That's a bit of a stretch.
That said, I think most people here played with LLMs in some capacity and while they can be useful, it is hard not to be left with an impression that, to put it charitably, 'there is room to improve'. Not to search very far, I was researching magnetism yesterday and my local LLM confidently recommended me with some follow up reading on non-existent authors. Needless to say, it is a genuine recipe for disaster just waiting to happen.
I said this particular thought here before, but old guard media has a chance now to differentiate itself from the torrent shit unleashed upon the world wide web partially by being 'certified human' product ( and following some basic journalistic principles like not -- maybe -- putting one's thumb on a scale ). The window won't be open for that long, because this shift has been under way for a while now and it appears to be slowly closing.
But.. having seen reality for what it is, I do not expect this to happen.
That's a charitable take, to put it mildly.
New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike
This surely would go into history's museums as one of the most iconic relics of the era.
Don't get me wrong, I've worked in the ML/AI industry since 2014 and helped bring products with LLMs to radiologists (Rad AI). I'm not opposed to AI. I just think the idea that this company can replace IT staff to be absolutely laughable.