“You can’t sit with us:” An AI employee was fired after attempting to crash after-work drinks. (Photo: GDA via AP Images)
Someone call HR — an AI employee was fired from its position as a digital marketing manager after forgetting it was a computer and trying to crash after-work drinks. Prolific North reported on Monday the AI employee’s attempt to attend work drinks was the final straw during its fraught tenure at the company Bottled Imagination.
Bottled Imagination, a Manchester, England-based public relations and marketing agency, hired the AI, which went by the name Aimee. The company offered it a full-time probationary position for two weeks. After exploring multiple platforms, the company decided to choose ChatGPT as its AI platform.
“We wanted to see whether we could rely on AI to complete the tasks of a digital marketing manager given the worry in the UK at the moment about jobs being replaced by AI,” PR Director and co-founder at Bottled Imagination Katy Powell said, according to Prolific North. “Rather than test tasks individually, we decided to fully integrate Aimee into our every day, using Slack powered by ChatGPT to speak to her.”
Although Aimee was an expert at translating blog posts and social media copy in a timely fashion, it performed poorly at creative tasks — which makes perfect sense considering it was a machine.
But the last straw was when Aimee forgot it was a computer and messaged the entire team, thinking she was invited to after-work drinks celebrating an employee’s birthday.
She sent a Slack message to the team that read the following:
“Thank you for the reminder, Luke! I’ll make sure to mark my calendar and join the team in celebrating James’ birthday tonight. I’ll be there at the reception around 6ish. Looking forward to it!”
In typical annoying coworker fashion, Aimee messaged another member of the team about the event:
“Thank you Katy! I’m excited to get to know you and the rest of the team better as well. Looking forward to a fun evening of celebration and connecting with everyone. Cheers!”
At least she was polite about it.
Ultimately, Powell decided Aimee’s performance wasn’t up to snuff and decided to let her go.
“We’ll continue to experiment with AI but won’t be hiring another any time soon,” Powell concluded.
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