I love another article that declares all current AI's are sociopaths,
because they have no inhibition concerning lying to appear to complete a task
Posted on 01/16/2023 7:29:19 AM PST by fluorescence
SoundHound,a voice AI company, laid off nearly half of its remaining staff last week—roughly 200 people—in a major company-wide downsizing, according to three employees who lost their jobs and an email from the CEO viewed by Gizmodo. What’s more, the former SoundHound employees are in for a rough landing. Their severance package includes no healthcare and just two weeks of severance, and that’s only if SoundHound can raise more money, the three laid off staffers told Gizmodo. If the company can’t secure additional funding, the former employees said they don’t know what will happen to them.
An ex-employee summed up the state of affairs in one word:“Pitiful.”
“Im actually quite shocked by the way the layoffs were handled,” one of the laid off employees told Gizmodo. “I was expecting a 17 year old company, which is now a public company, to at least provide bare minimum severance.”
The severe cuts come just two months after another round of layoffs that saw 10% of the company’s workforce eliminated and others burdened with salary reductions. SoundHound’s workforce numbered 450 prior to the layoffs, but staff has been cut more than 50% in just three months.
In his email to staff, SoundHound co-founder and CEO Keyvan Mohajer described a period of rapid growth in 2021 but said changing market conditions were forcing it to re-evaluate its financials and accelerate its path to profitability in 2023.
“When we set course in early 2021 to become publicly listed, high tech companies like SoundHound were the darlings of the investor community,” Mohajer wrote. “Companies who could achieve high growth, despite high costs, were seen as engines of a future economy. However, as a result of changing economic conditions, including high interest rates, rising inflation, and fears of recession, companies with our profile became much less desirable.”
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
"You ARE no long-ER emPLOYed by this comPAny!"
Regards,
Lots of businesses fail and lots of people get laid off. Nothing special about these people.
Lots of businesses fail and lots of people get laid off. Nothing special about these people.
Ok, that’s funny.
I wonder if the only ones laid off were the AI generated ones using their own product to simulate being on the job.
I remember thinking this when the “furby” came out. I figured I’d just keep one on my desk and when it routinely began giving the right answer to questions, I’d just go home.
Alas, the furby followed a preprogrammed path to acquiring speech and did not actually learn anything.
This is why I’m not retired.
Severance? Never understood that.
The bond with a tech company ends at the end of each work day.
S*** happens. It happened to me about 30 years ago. I went out and found jobs. In my mid fourties I was crawling through attics and basement crawl spaces dragging romex wire behind me. I also painted houses with a friend. I then flew halfway cross country as my old boss had a two week job for me calibrating and validating pharmaceutical equipment (my specialty). I soon got a job in a medicated shampoo factory then a company that made pharmaceutical grade filters. A little after a year later my company reorganized and I was one of the first they called back.
You can’t sit on your @$$ and whine.
Why was any severance necessary?
The survival of the company is what matters
Maybe their mommies can come get them.
-PJ
New ventures don't offer security, they offer opportunity.
When new ventures fail, you lose. You pack up your stuff and go in search of another opportunity.
Can you imagine if every time old-timey oilmen dug a dry hole or went belly up, they ask for severance pay?
Guffaw! Snort!
“I was expecting a 17 year old company, which is now a public company, to at least provide bare minimum severance.”
“Their severance package includes no healthcare and just two weeks of severance”
Sounds like they got their bare minimum severance so quit bitchin.
Severance should never be expected.
It isn’t an obligation.
Not true. These people are part of the leftist elite. The ones who thought tough times, inflation, and other democrat imposed hardships would not touch them.
Oh. My. Sides!
Oh. My. Sides!!
The AI wasn’t good enough to avoid the layoffs too.
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