Empathy Has Left the Chat
You’re out of a job. But hey, there’s an app for that!
And you can act real rude and totally removed. And I can act like an imbecile. To some, it’s just a lyric by Men Without Hats. To others, it’s basically a job description.
In the wake of mass layoffs at Xbox Game Studios, visionary executive Matt Turnbull sidestepped dated concepts like empathy and financial support, advocating instead for the heartwarming embrace of AI chatbots. Because when your career collapses, it’s so comforting to know that Siri cares.
In a now-deleted LinkedIn post so tone-deaf it could headline Coachella, Turnbull encouraged laid-off employees to turn not to family or friends, but to artificially generated sympathy from AI chatbots. It’s the corporate equivalent of handing a Band-Aid to someone you just stabbed with a sword. That’s right, folks: your job is gone, your healthcare uncertain, your future murky — but hey, have you tried talking to Copilot about your resume?
Nothing screams we see you as human like being told to unpack your trauma with the same software that’s automating your job. Turnbull throws you overboard, then offers a flotation device — only it’s a bucket of concrete with a smiley face on it.
Turnbull’s zeal isn’t just tone-deaf, it’s aggressively absurd. It perfectly encapsulates the toxic Silicon Valley optimism that assumes any crisis can be solved by throwing more tech at it, as if human emotions were a coding error needing a patch.
But perhaps we’ve misjudged Turnbull. Perhaps he’s just ahead of his time. Soon, maybe he'll suggest using ChatGPT to explain layoffs to your kids or, better yet, to comfort the executives themselves when their stock options dip.
Turnbull’s emotional range lands somewhere between a vending machine and a brick wall. If Microsoft’s automating anything, start with him. At least the vending machine doesn’t embarrass itself on LinkedIn.
Or maybe give the guy a raise. He’s clearly in sync with the future. After all, empathy is so last year.