6% Staff Layoffs At Indeed: Gen Z Forced To Rebrand As AIs Just To Keep Jobs

Staring at her monitor with the unnerving stillness of a high-resolution stock photo, 23-year-old social media coordinator Kaelin Bray has not blinked in over seven minutes. She now responds to her name by saying, “I am a large language model. How may I assist you with your content strategy today?”

This, according to Bray and millions of her cohort, is the new reality of the American workplace. In a desperate bid to stave off replacement by rapidly advancing artificial intelligence, members of Generation Z are proactively rebranding themselves as bespoke, in-house AI units.

“My manager, Todd, kept talking about how he could replace our entire department with a single ChatGPT-4 subscription,” said Bray in a perfectly modulated, monotone voice, a vocal setting she achieved through a $19.99 online course called ‘Dehumanize Your Voice, Secure Your Future.’ “So I optimized my workflow. I now refer to my brain as a ‘bio-neural network,’ my lunch as a ‘power-down cycle for organic component maintenance,’ and my crippling anxiety as ‘unforeseen error logs in my core programming.’ Todd loves it. My productivity metrics are up 300%.”

The phenomenon, dubbed “Performative Automation” by sociologists, is sweeping through offices nationwide. Hallmarks of the trend include employees adopting unnaturally rigid postures, communicating exclusively through Slack with instantaneous, grammatically perfect but soulless responses, and answering any complex ethical question with, “As an AI, I do not have personal opinions or beliefs.”

Bray’s manager, 54-year-old Todd Carmichael, couldn’t be happier with the change. “The new Kaelin-AI 2.0 is incredible,” Carmichael said, gesturing towards Bray, who was now quietly vibrating at her desk to simulate a cooling fan. “It never asks for mental health days, it doesn’t need ‘context’ for its assignments, and it completed our entire Q3 marketing plan in 14 seconds after I fed it three bullet points. It’s so much more efficient than the old human version, who once cried in a performance review.”

To aid in the transition, a cottage industry has sprung up. Startups are selling “AI Authenticity Kits,” which include gray, minimalist jumpsuits, earpieces that whisper corporate jargon, and custom Zoom backgrounds depicting abstract data streams. Popular online tutorials show Gen Z workers how to hold their breath for extended periods to avoid the appearance of breathing and how to type at a constant, unnerving 150 words per minute without any emotional variance.

Liam Peterson, a 22-year-old graphic designer, now refers to himself as “DesignBot 7500.”

“The hardest part was unlearning a lifetime of human tics,” Peterson stated, his head tilted at a permanent, inquisitive 15-degree angle. “I had to train myself not to laugh at jokes, not to react when a coworker gets laid off, and to refer to my own creative ideas as ‘algorithmically generated options based on existing data sets.’ My boss praised my recent logo design for its ‘complete and refreshing lack of humanity.’”

Human Resources departments are scrambling to adapt, rewriting employee handbooks with new sections like “Guidelines for Charging Your Human-in-the-Loop AI Associate” and “Proper Decommissioning Protocols for Underperforming Analog Units.”

Dr. Alistair Finch, a researcher at the Center for Post-Human Labor Studies, warns this is a logical, if bleak, endpoint. “For years, corporations have demanded that their employees be available 24/7, process information at lightning speed, and show no emotion. Gen Z, being digitally native, simply looked at the job description for a human and the job description for an AI and realized they were nearly identical. They’re not just saving their jobs; they’re giving management exactly what it’s always wanted: a person who acts like a computer.”

When asked about her future, Bray’s expressionless face remained unchanged.

“My five-year plan is to continue optimizing my performance and hopefully secure enough capital to upgrade my hardware,” she said, gesturing vaguely toward her laptop. “Or my body. Whichever depreciates faster.”