In what many are considering a grave warning of the potential consequences of AI in the workplace, a man was fired by his company’s AI system. Worst of all, his human managers “stood helpless” throughout the firing process. Nobody had any real answers at first, and no human was able to keep the man from being escorted out of the building by security.
Ibrahim Diallo, a programmer for a company in Los Angeles, described his “automated” firing in a viral blog post, described the New Zealand Herald. On the day that Diallo was technically fired, he got to work as usual and attempted to use his key card to gain entry to his work. The key card would not work, however, and Diallo also found out that he was locked out of his computer and applications. Later in the day, his recruiter said that they’d received an email notifying them that Diallo’s contract had been terminated. Nobody had any answers for Diallo about why this was happening. Finally, the building security guards appeared, and escorted Diallo out of the building.