Laid off due to AI? Copywriter claims ChatGPT ‘took away’ her job
Olivia Lipkin, who now works as a dog walker, was laid off by a tech startup in April without an explanation, reported The Washington Post.
A copywriter who was laid off by her employer without an explanation has claimed it was ChatGPT that led to her job loss.
What happened?
According to The Washington Post, when San Francisco-based OpenAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) lab that developed ChatGPT, released the bot (in November last year), copywriter Olivia Lipkin 'didn't think too much about it'. Over the next few months, however, the number of assignments being given to her started to ‘dwindle’, added The Post.
Finally, in April, Lipkin, who herself works out of San Francisco, was relieved by the tech startup where she was the only writer. Also, the company did not tell her why she was being let go.
What happened next?
Revealing to The Post that in the months leading up to her layoff, articles began appearing on the startup's internal Slack groups about how to use ChatGPT on job, Lipkin said managers were referring to her as ‘Olivia/ChatGPT’ on the platform.
Then, days after losing her job, she found out that managers were writing about how using the AI chatbot was ‘cheaper’ than paying a writer.
“The reason (behind the layoff) now seemed clear. Whenever ChatGPT was brought up, it made me insecure and anxious that it would replace me. Now, I have proof that those anxieties were true, and I am out of job because of AI,” she told the Washington-based daily.
Lipkin's current status
The now-former copywriter is working as a dog walker. “I'm totally taking a break from the office world. People are looking for the cheapest solution, and that's not a person,” Lipkin remarked.
