EDIT: After trending #1 spot on the front page, this got removed it seems. Hopefully this gets resolved but I hope HN'ers had fun either way!
Hey HN!
Quick project to get my brains warmed up. Used GPT to generate layoff texts and DALL-E for the CEO images. The text generation took a bit of prompt-massaging to get it working as expected but not too long.
This is obviously meant to be satirical and not very useful. However, it got me thinking. To create something like this pre-GPT, it would have taken me 10s or 100s of contractors writing the texts. Now it's just me, one person.
It's common startup wisdom that to win your product has to 10x better than your competition. It sure does looks like LLM's are 10x-ing or 100x-ing the status quos, at least in certain areas.
Certain areas like... selling satirical fake layoff notices? This is really going to disrupt that market! Nobody will ever have to pay hundreds of contractors to write satirical nonsense layoff notices again.
But thank you for your project, it's coming up with some pretty hilarious stuff, it made me laugh.
I mean, it 100x’d the productivity of a project where the measure of success is legible content that’s adequately mad-libbed. ;) I think the PR people writing these layoff notices don’t have anything to worry about for at least… 3 months minimum.
Overall, yes, the tech is still quite rough and its not exactly straightforward to get economically valuable outputs out of it. However, even if further AI breakthroughs don't come along, I think smart engineering and duct tape will be enough to create a decent amount of disruption and value.
We've never had the "calculator for text" so even a bad one opens ups a lot of new doors.
Dang I was hoping I could fill in the parameters myself so I could send it to a coworker with something like publicly bitching on Blind (we know who you are) as the reason. We all work in cybersecurity and just assume anyone signing up via corporate email as Blind insists you must is on the list for the next round of layoffs. Nobody signs up to Blind in order to sing the praises of where they work, after all.
I signed up to Blind to lurk. I assumed that's why most people do. Like most "anonymous", lightly moderated forums, it's a bit of a cesspool. I wouldn't recommend spending too much time there for the sake of one's mental health.
In retrospect I forgot that people will also sign up on levels.fyi or blind to brag about compensation. Yeah I would love to lurk, but not at the potential cost of my job.
> Important message: 15% layoffs at Intel due to Scientology
> Bob "The Sceptic" Swan, CEO at Intel
> Things started to unravel last month when we began to notice suspicious activity beginning to take place on our campus. After some investigation, it was revealed that our catering staff and security team had been quietly converting to Scientology. Unbeknownst to us, the adoption of the creed had an unexpected consequence on our workforce - namely, a complete lack of productivity. Despite our best efforts to resolve the issue, the productivity levels have not recovered and so, after much deliberation, we have decided to let go of 15% of the staff.
> It all started when I decided to install an air conditioning unit in the office. Little did I know that the excess heat created by the air conditioner would drastically raise the temperature of the office, and this increase in heat would eventually lead to a dramatic rise in sea levels. Unbeknownst to me, this sudden change in sea level would result in a series of unexpected floods, leaving me no choice but to lay off 10% of our devoted Instacart family.
>It has unfortunately come to my attention that a 15% reduction in our workforce is necessary. As your CEO, I take full accountability for this difficult decision. In a recent board meeting, I was discussing a new product launch with a hardworking Mexican engineer. As I was proposing some ideas, much to my surprise a small burrito he was eating abruptly slipped from his hand and fell directly into the server, causing a complete system overload.
>After attempting to remove the delicious burrito from the system, we discovered that the only way to save the server was to layoff 15% of our staff. Though heartbreaking, this was the only way to prevent a complete system failure.
Of all the claims of things these chatbots are getting good at, its only getting a laugh out of me that actually works. The Onion could have launched this satire as a service.
> His high-volume words triggered a massive sonic blast that traveled around the room and dispersed throughout the office. After further analysis, it turns out these sonic waves contained the most severe form of mouth herpes, resulting in the infection of many of our hardworking staff members!
> The outbreak was so bad that our staff productivity decreased by almost 50%, and since the current economic conditions wouldn't allow us to make any budget adjustments, the only way to keep this company afloat was to layoff 15% of our workforce. Again, I want to apologize on behalf of the entire Sony team and I want to thank all of you for your hard work and dedication.
Seems Google is really not a place to coast anymore.
> company GOOGLE, reason WATERBOARDING, accountability TRUE
> An important message from Sundar the Great Pichai
> I am writing to you today to deliver some upsetting, but necessary news. After lengthy consideration, we have decided to let 10% of our workforce go, effective immediately. I take full responsibility for this difficult decision, and I regret the impact it will have on all of us and on our families.
> The reason for the layoff is a little more unusual than most. After much consideration and brainstorming, we concluded that the best way to stay afloat as a company was to implement a system of waterboarding. By doing this we would be able to save on business costs, as the process would be faster and more efficient than other methods of management.
Unfortunately, due to a giant that descended upon us, we have had to make the difficult decision of laying off 10% of our workforce... <...>
The giant in question is something that I had never seen before. It was an entity made up of gremlins, trolls, and mischievous elves. I wish I could tell you more about this giant, but it has long disappeared, leaving us with no other choice but to let go of some of our members.
> He had the bright idea of installing custom charging ports all over the office. He unfortunately confused the wiring diagrams of the charging ports and the diagrams of the gloryholes.
>It appears that, during our transition to the digital age, the internet completely disappeared. We scoured the globe for it, but it seems to have been completely erased from existence. This has caused immense disruptions to our business, leading to the unfortunate layoffs that are necessary for continued success.
> It is with deep regret that I must inform you that due to an unforeseen infestation of wizards in our headquarters, we are forced to layoff 10% of the Netflix workforce. I take full accountability for this decision, as I recognize the impact it will have on all of you and your families.
> It all started on a fateful Wednesday morning, when a large black thundercloud appeared over Netflix headquarters in San Francisco and a powerful gust of magical wind blew open the doors. Before we knew it, seven wizards wielding wands and broomsticks descended upon the lobby and began making mischief. They caused the sprinklers to spray the office with confetti, the elevators to rocket up and down the shafts, and the fire alarms to scream out musical numbers at the top of their lungs.
> Layoffs at Binance due to time travel:
> Greetings, Binancees!
> It is with great sorrow that I must inform you that due to an unforeseen event, we are forced to lay off 10% of our workforce. The cause? Time travel.
> It's true. Someone on our team discovered a blue-violet vortex in the break room and to our surprise, this portal allowed us to travel through time! Unfortunately, upon our travels, we ended up unleashing something known as the butterfly effect. In essence, we changed the future, and in that future, we need 10% less of our workforce than we do today.
we changed the future, and in that future, we need 10% less of our workforce than we do today.
that's much better than the one i found:
As many of you are aware, we recently made the risky venture into time travel. We knew that this new technology could be either a boon or a bust for our company, and we took the chance with it. Unfortunately, the gamble did not pay off and the time travel experiment caused a drastic shift in the stock market trends. This shift was so severe that it caused us to lay off 10% of our team in order to stay afloat.
The Slack one was mildly amusing ("Greetings Slackers"),
> Stewart sent the following email to Slack employees earlier today.
> Greetings Slackers,
> As you all know, the team at Slack has recently made the difficult decision to lay off 11% of its employees. I want to be clear that I take full responsibility for this decision, and while the cause of the layoffs is unfortunate, there is a silver lining.
I regret to inform you that due to the recent haunting of a certain haunted house, Microsoft has had to layoff a total of 15% of its workforce. This unfortunate situation has been caused by the evil ghost of a former Microsoft employee who, long ago, was not given the recognition he deserved. In the time since, he has exacted his revenge by haunting the house, causing an extreme disruption to the internal workings of the company.
60 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 123 ms ] threadHey HN!
Quick project to get my brains warmed up. Used GPT to generate layoff texts and DALL-E for the CEO images. The text generation took a bit of prompt-massaging to get it working as expected but not too long.
This is obviously meant to be satirical and not very useful. However, it got me thinking. To create something like this pre-GPT, it would have taken me 10s or 100s of contractors writing the texts. Now it's just me, one person.
It's common startup wisdom that to win your product has to 10x better than your competition. It sure does looks like LLM's are 10x-ing or 100x-ing the status quos, at least in certain areas.
What I'm saying is, I take 0 accountability for this not functioning as expected.
But thank you for your project, it's coming up with some pretty hilarious stuff, it made me laugh.
But I got a good laugh out of it! Good job!
Overall, yes, the tech is still quite rough and its not exactly straightforward to get economically valuable outputs out of it. However, even if further AI breakthroughs don't come along, I think smart engineering and duct tape will be enough to create a decent amount of disruption and value.
We've never had the "calculator for text" so even a bad one opens ups a lot of new doors.
I was going to say this was too unrealistic, then I remembered what timeline we're in.
> Important message: 15% layoffs at Intel due to Scientology
> Bob "The Sceptic" Swan, CEO at Intel
> Things started to unravel last month when we began to notice suspicious activity beginning to take place on our campus. After some investigation, it was revealed that our catering staff and security team had been quietly converting to Scientology. Unbeknownst to us, the adoption of the creed had an unexpected consequence on our workforce - namely, a complete lack of productivity. Despite our best efforts to resolve the issue, the productivity levels have not recovered and so, after much deliberation, we have decided to let go of 15% of the staff.
> It all started when I decided to install an air conditioning unit in the office. Little did I know that the excess heat created by the air conditioner would drastically raise the temperature of the office, and this increase in heat would eventually lead to a dramatic rise in sea levels. Unbeknownst to me, this sudden change in sea level would result in a series of unexpected floods, leaving me no choice but to lay off 10% of our devoted Instacart family.
>It has unfortunately come to my attention that a 15% reduction in our workforce is necessary. As your CEO, I take full accountability for this difficult decision. In a recent board meeting, I was discussing a new product launch with a hardworking Mexican engineer. As I was proposing some ideas, much to my surprise a small burrito he was eating abruptly slipped from his hand and fell directly into the server, causing a complete system overload.
>After attempting to remove the delicious burrito from the system, we discovered that the only way to save the server was to layoff 15% of our staff. Though heartbreaking, this was the only way to prevent a complete system failure.
> His high-volume words triggered a massive sonic blast that traveled around the room and dispersed throughout the office. After further analysis, it turns out these sonic waves contained the most severe form of mouth herpes, resulting in the infection of many of our hardworking staff members!
> The outbreak was so bad that our staff productivity decreased by almost 50%, and since the current economic conditions wouldn't allow us to make any budget adjustments, the only way to keep this company afloat was to layoff 15% of our workforce. Again, I want to apologize on behalf of the entire Sony team and I want to thank all of you for your hard work and dedication.
> Yours faithfully, Kenny 'Herpesmouth' Yoshida
> company GOOGLE, reason WATERBOARDING, accountability TRUE
> An important message from Sundar the Great Pichai
> I am writing to you today to deliver some upsetting, but necessary news. After lengthy consideration, we have decided to let 10% of our workforce go, effective immediately. I take full responsibility for this difficult decision, and I regret the impact it will have on all of us and on our families.
> The reason for the layoff is a little more unusual than most. After much consideration and brainstorming, we concluded that the best way to stay afloat as a company was to implement a system of waterboarding. By doing this we would be able to save on business costs, as the process would be faster and more efficient than other methods of management.
Unfortunately, due to a giant that descended upon us, we have had to make the difficult decision of laying off 10% of our workforce... <...> The giant in question is something that I had never seen before. It was an entity made up of gremlins, trolls, and mischievous elves. I wish I could tell you more about this giant, but it has long disappeared, leaving us with no other choice but to let go of some of our members.
Well that was something.
GPT does a great job of making it marginally believable while completely unpossible. Love it!
> Greeting to my fellow Members,
> It is with deep regret that I must inform you that due to an unforeseen infestation of wizards in our headquarters, we are forced to layoff 10% of the Netflix workforce. I take full accountability for this decision, as I recognize the impact it will have on all of you and your families.
> It all started on a fateful Wednesday morning, when a large black thundercloud appeared over Netflix headquarters in San Francisco and a powerful gust of magical wind blew open the doors. Before we knew it, seven wizards wielding wands and broomsticks descended upon the lobby and began making mischief. They caused the sprinklers to spray the office with confetti, the elevators to rocket up and down the shafts, and the fire alarms to scream out musical numbers at the top of their lungs.
> Layoffs at Binance due to time travel:
> Greetings, Binancees!
> It is with great sorrow that I must inform you that due to an unforeseen event, we are forced to lay off 10% of our workforce. The cause? Time travel.
> It's true. Someone on our team discovered a blue-violet vortex in the break room and to our surprise, this portal allowed us to travel through time! Unfortunately, upon our travels, we ended up unleashing something known as the butterfly effect. In essence, we changed the future, and in that future, we need 10% less of our workforce than we do today.
that's much better than the one i found:
As many of you are aware, we recently made the risky venture into time travel. We knew that this new technology could be either a boon or a bust for our company, and we took the chance with it. Unfortunately, the gamble did not pay off and the time travel experiment caused a drastic shift in the stock market trends. This shift was so severe that it caused us to lay off 10% of our team in order to stay afloat.
> Stewart sent the following email to Slack employees earlier today.
> Greetings Slackers,
> As you all know, the team at Slack has recently made the difficult decision to lay off 11% of its employees. I want to be clear that I take full responsibility for this decision, and while the cause of the layoffs is unfortunate, there is a silver lining.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DaoUTja82QXTYPsb9
Sounds about right.
Perfection