One of the benefits of A.I. is that it will help businesses increase efficiency and reduce payroll by taking over functions like copywriting, data entry, strategic categorizing, and more.
“Eleanor,” the new A.I. assistant launched by GPingo in February, takes the process to a higher level. She eliminates jobs, but doesn’t bother taking over any of their functions. She just eliminates the jobs.
“The goal of A.I. is to reduce headcount, right?” says Gene Eiler, GPingo’s Chief Explanation Officer. “Why waste time and worry reassigning responsibilities?”
The beauty of it all, he says, is that Eleanor decides which companies to target and which jobs to get rid of. And once she gets going, it’s impossible to stop her
“We were actually doing pretty well,” says Dorothy Sanford, HR Director of Nashville reimbursement start-up NoToGoTo. “We were humming along with 34 full-time employees and were on the verge of hiring five more.” Then, she says, Eleanor eliminated 12 of the company’s positions, most of which were considered essential to the operation.
“We tried everything we could think of to get them back,” says Sanford, “but Eleanor wouldn’t let us.”
More than 1600 other US businesses have faced a similar situation this year, as Eleanor has reduced their workforces by a combined 23,000 positions.
“Sure, they complain about the random cuts,” says Eiltner, “but you never hear them thanking us for the cost savings.” The randomness of the cuts is a small price to pay, he says.
“People were so worried about AI deciding to destroy all of mankind,” he says. “Compared to that this is small potatoes.”
