War games, worker woes and Cardboard Chad littered our news feed this week, so it’s fair to say this is one helluva show. Cardboard Chad is LinkedIn’s hottest trend in years (IYKYK) and is making its way to SHRM in Vegas next week. (Gotta listen to make sense of this one, sorry.) Indeed is still messing up, but they’re doing it on multiple continents this week. HackerRank plays Whack-a-Mole with ChatGPT and drones are going to kill us all. Unions and strikes are trending too. Oh yeah, Martha Stewart tells us why we should get back to the office.
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Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast.
Joel: Oh, yeah. It's National Donald Duck Day, you know what that means Chad, no pants. No pants. Daisy is a lucky girl, isn't she? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. This is your co-host Joel, it's not many, Cheesman.
Chad: This is Chad, is a time for a coffee break, Sowash.
Joel: And on this week's show, war games, worker woes and cardboard Chad. Let's do this. [laughter] It's the hottest social media sensation.
Chad: It's ridiculous.
Joel: Said Tequila Tila or whatever her name was. It's cardboard Chad.
Chad: It's cardboard Chad. Yeah, everybody else is getting replaced by AI, I'm getting replaced with cardboard. So kids get ready, cardboard is the new AI.
Joel: What's old is new again with cardboard Chad. So, listeners that don't know, I'm gonna be at SHRM this week. Chad is living his best life in Portugal. So I said, why don't we get a cardboard version of Chad for the booth while I'm recording to make me feel at home, to make people feel like Chad is there. So, they ran with the idea, we sent over the picture of Chad in the bathrobe in Sweden with his Ray-Bans and a beer. And they have three cutout heads of Chad and a full body cardboard version. So I posted this on LinkedIn.
Chad: Yes. [chuckle]
Joel: And people are losing their minds. Like, people are re-sharing it, liking it. It really is the... We need to give these out for Christmas. [laughter] Cardboard Chad for all our fans.
Chad: Oh, my God. It's fucking awesome. Yeah. Life size, I love how it says, "Life size cardboard Chad." [laughter]
Joel: It is not healthy.
SFX: That escalated quickly.
Joel: It is not good for anybody. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
Chad: Alright. Time for shoutouts.
SFX: Shoutouts.
Chad: Alright, first shout out goes to Remote Work, kids. A new survey carried out by LifeSearch has revealed that 77% of workers have said they've done, "something they shouldn't have," during working hours, including one out of 10 respondents who say they have sex during working hours.
SFX: What are you doing, step bro?
Chad: And I say, there's nothing wrong with substituting your coffee break with a sex break. And if you're Joel Cheesman, you can still have sex, still have your coffee, and a toasted bagel. Shout out to remote work. [laughter]
Joel: That escalated quickly. So, from that remote work to this, so my shout out goes to Martha Stewart. That's right Chad, your favorite SI cover girl at Inside Trader has weighted into the hotly contested remote work debate saying, "America will go down the drain if people don't go back to the office." Adding, "You can't possibly get everything done working three days a week in the office and two days remotely. Look at the success of France and their stupid off for August blah blah blah... " Shockingly, and I'm shocked Chad, Martha Stewart has an estimated $100 million in real estate. Go figure that she wants everybody back into the office. Shout out to Martha Stewart.
Chad: Stupid people everywhere, my friends. Next shout out goes to Lionel Messi, that's right kids, who is leaving Paris Saint Germain, that's Julie's favorite club. But not for the big dollars of Saudi Arabia. No, no, no. Not back to the wonderful tapas of Barcelona, but on the play in the MLS over at Inter Miami. Why? Well, here's a breakdown from CBS Sports.
Speaker 5: Involves for him, Growler and why MLS do you think?
Speaker 6: I think in the end, although it's Lionel Messi and you would think, "Okay, he's got a billion options." This was what it seems was the best one, obviously, because he chose it. But I think Saudi just represented a lot of money, and maybe not the big picture that he was looking to and Inter Miami presents to him profit sharing, a bigger picture, ownership, maybe similar amounts of money, better lifestyle. I can only speak to my experience of Miami and what Miami is all over the world.
Speaker 7: You're right.
Speaker 6: It's one of the best places to live.
Speaker 7: You're right.
[laughter]
Speaker 7: So not as good as New York. Second best.
Speaker 6: It represented more things than just money. And I think that's what made the most sense. And from what I understand, Barcelona was basically off the table.
Speaker 7: Yeah. From a business side though, he's getting percentage of the club, I was just reading, and percentage of revenue for Apple.
Speaker 6: Apple and Adidas.
Speaker 7: That's incredible. It's, you get the money too, you get the lifestyle, your kids get to learn English. It's the best of all worlds.
Chad: In Miami, baby.
SFX: Alright. Alright. Alright.
Chad: Miami. Yeah, so Apple, Messi share of revenue through the MLS season pass. That's the prospect that they're talking about. Adidas, offered a profit sharing agreement that could cut him into any increase that they see resulting in MLS profits within his involvement. So I'm sure there's some strings that are there. But yeah, Messi coming to the US. The greatest soccer/football player ever to play the game coming to Miami.
Joel: And I'm sure he will finally make soccer popular in America. [laughter] Let's see, we had Wayne Rooney came to town, Beckham came to town, that Zlatan guy came to town. I'm not saying that correct. So, I'll give you this, if Messi can't do it, Pele couldn't do it either, by the way. Although that was 100 years ago. If Messi can't do it, maybe it can't be done. 'Cause if the best player in the world can't... Now, Ronaldo might have a better shot 'cause he's foxy like that. Messi doesn't really have that sex appeal that the Miami folks love. And Miami's kind of a weird fan base anyway, they kinda show up, they kinda don't. So, we'll see how this plays out. But hommie's getting paid, that's the bottom line.
Chad: Oh, yeah. Ownership and then being able to get all that Apple and Adidas cash, there's some good options there. Not to mention, you're talking about Cuban food, great tans, hot chicks, and... What else, Miami? Welcome to Miami. Will Smith's there all the time, come on.
[laughter]
Joel: Sure. Sure.
Chad: Cuban food. Cuban food.
Joel: Come to America, baby. Come to America. The American dream is alive and well for Lionel Messi.
Chad: Too awesome.
Joel: Love it, love it. Alright. Well, from something that makes sense to something that probably doesn't make a lot of sense to a lot people.
SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Joel: Alright. My shout out goes to Tony Fidel. Who the fuck is Tony Fidel? Well, you've probably heard about Apple's new VR headset dubbed Vision Pro.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Reviews were mixed. But Tony Fidel, a guy who played a key role in the development of Apple's iPod, said he doubts the pricey gadget will gain wide acceptance. Saying, "Apple's Vision Pro is a technological tour de force, very impressive. But with the consumer apps and marketing for $3,500 with a two hour battery life, apple has truly 'jumped the shark'." ouch. Chad, I know you're a big Apple guy. Any opinion on Apple's new Vision Pro which doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever being owned by you, by the way.
Chad: No. [chuckle] Have they been paying attention to Facebook? Now Meta. I don't understand any of this. It makes no sense whatsoever. So, the big thing right now is being able to automate ChatGPT. It's like, you find what is working and you roll with it. Google's doing it with Bard right now to be able to change search with generative AI, and then they come out with a fucking ugly pair of glasses. Yes, you can see through them. Wow, is that the innovation that we're going with here? A heads up display? I don't know, I will not own a pair anytime soon.
Joel: I learned a valuable lesson in the early days of the internet, Chad. PPC drives the internet. PPC, not pay-per-click. Porn, Pills, and Casinos. The only way this deals work is if Apple partners with PornHub to create virtual reality porn that will be bought by every male on the planet for whatever price. [laughter] They want to ask for it. But until then, no. Looking at the stars with this thing on my head.
Chad: Not doing it.
Joel: Which is basically a ski mask.
[laughter]
Joel: Or ski goggles. I don't know, man. I don't know, man. I want VR to work, but I don't think it's gonna happen.
Chad: Yeah. No, it's cool tech, I just don't think it's practical. My last shout out goes to Dina Perro for sending us some podcast love. She calls the, Chad and Cheese, "The most enjoyable real podcast," She listens to, and that she loves the new YouTube podcast. That's right kids, we are on YouTube now. You go to YouTube, all you have to do is search for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Click on the channel, subscribe, and Dina for all of that, you get a free T-shirt.
Joel: Ooh, free t-shirt.
Chad: That's right.
Joel: She's gonna love that. Love that. So, we've gone from voice to audio. Basically we're going deep, Chad.
SFX: Just the tip.
Joel: Alright. So...
Chad: Wait a minute, we got to give Serge Boudreau a little credit for that sound effect, 'cause he's feeling a little slighted, because he sent that just the tip sound effect to us that we use all the fucking time. And he's not allowed to on his show because Shelly won't let him. And we use the shit out of it. [laughter] So thanks Serge, we appreciate it. [laughter]
Joel: It's pronounced Serge.
Chad: Serge.
Joel: And no love for Canadians.
[laughter]
SFX: Take off. We were doing our movie. Don't rick our show, you hoser.
Chad: Carry on.
Joel: Alright. So, speaking of...
Chad: Free stuff.
Joel: Great stuff. Whether it's YouTube, or stuff that you can drink or put on your body, you got to get some free stuff from us. We're giving away t-shirts from JobGet, Bourbon from our friends at Tex Colonel, Beer from Aspen Tech Labs. And if it's your birthday, we're giving away rum sponsored by our friends at Plum. But you got to play if you wanna win, you got to head to Chadcheese.com. Click the freelance. And you might get some really, really cool stuff people.
[laughter]
Chad: What time is it?
SFX: Can you feel the tension in the air right now? [laughter]
Joel: Sounds like it's time for some birthdays.
[laughter]
SFX: I can feel it all the way down in my plums.
Joel: Alright. You know what that means, Chad. We've got some birthdays this week. Another trip around the sun and some people that could win some rum from our friends at Plum. We're talking about Christina Bucci, Fishers Indiana's own. Mark Anderson. Scott Allen, Aaron Koteff, and Philly, Nancy, Baris Savo.
Chad: There we go.
Joel: All celebrate.
SFX: Happy Birthday.
Joel: Another trip around the sun.
Chad: Nancy from Philly, guess what's next?
Joel: Travel Chad.
Chad: Time for travel. That's right kids.
Joel: That's right.
Chad: This is the 2019 Chad Cheese RecFest shirt. That's right.
Joel: You can only see that on YouTube, kids.
[laughter]
Chad: We are going to RecFest in the UK in Knebworth, July 6th. All hands meetings happening there. That's right. Talent Acquisition Leaders taking their entire fucking team. Why? 'Cause you need time to get together. You need time to bond. You need time to learn, with little beer, a little Chad and Cheese, maybe little Hung Lee. That's just a tip.
Joel: Oh, that is just a tip.
[laughter]
SFX: Just a tip.
Chad: But you got to be there. You go to chadcheese.com. Upper right hand corner, click on events. Still time to register for that event. And plenty of time, well not enough time. You should go do it now. Register for the RecFest in the US happening on September 13th and 14th in Nashville, Tennessee. Again, RecFest is nothing but a party for your entire fucking team. We're gonna bring our whole team, Cold Cheeseman is coming to London.
SFX: Alright. Alright. Alright.
Chad: Leavin, coming to London. Joel, myself, and Queen Julie, coming to London as well. Anybody else from our team coming?
Joel: Don't forget our favorite, Scott, Steven McGrath. Which is sure to upset all the Scotts to listen to this show because...
Chad: We better have a t-shirts for him.
Joel: So sensitive.
Chad: You better have a t-shirt for him.
Joel: Scotts are so expensive.
Chad: Yeah, he's gonna be... He's sensitive. He's a ginger for God's sake.
Joel: It's in the mail, Chad, and I'm tracking it. It's in the UK as we speak.
Chad: Thank God.
Joel: So, fingers crossed it will get to Stephen's barrel chested upper body by the time. Breakfast is there.
Chad: Hairy little man.
Joel: Yes. Yeah, yeah. So you're in Portugal, we mentioned this at the beginning. I will be at SHRM next week.
Chad: Oh, that's a...
Joel: I'll be in the Aaron Booth.
Chad: Did I say Janet Jackson was gonna be there?
Joel: Oh, yes, Chad. Not only cardboard Chad, but Janet Jackson will be there. By the way, Janet's married to me. She just doesn't know it yet.
[laughter]
Joel: And by the way, it's more like the 1992 Janet, with the hands over the boobs. But she's always that Janet in my mind. But anyway, hopefully I'll see her. If you're going to SHRM, if you're in leadership, I don't know how the tickets are being dulled out. Like, if someone can hook me up with some Janet tickets and some back backstage VIP passes that'd be great. But I will be there doing some interviews. Cardboard Chad will be there, I'll be there. The gang at Aaron will be there. Booth 2801, come say hi. And we'll have t-shirts, Chad, you know how people love them t-shirts. Some exclusive t-shirts from our friends at Aaron Booth. 2801 at SHRM, I'll see you in Vegas, everybody. I will see you in Vegas.
SFX: Beaver, Las Vegas. Beaver, Las Vegas.
Chad: That cardboard Chad gets back backstage tickets before you do. [laughter]
Joel: Cardboard Chad will get much luckier than me for sure at that. Oh God, this is going south.
SFX: Topics!
Joel: We got to get to some news before this goes really south. Alright, let's...
Chad: Too late.
Joel: Let's talk about some Indeed News.
[laughter]
Joel: Alright. More tomfoolery at our friends at Indeed. A source shared a document from Recruit Holdings, Indeed's parent company, "I currently work@indeed.com and I'm a big fan of your podcast." We're a big fan of you too, Mr. Anonymous. "The intel is that after Indeed did their layoffs just last week, we found that their board of directors wanted to increase their own compensation. So, basically it was like laying off 15% of our workforce, just so the board of directors could get 15% more salary increase when they already earn close to a million dollars annually."
[laughter]
Joel: "Specifically, directors have an annual salary pool of 10 million and want to raise it to 11.5 million." But wait, Chad, there's more.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: There's more. Japanese media reported Recruit Holdings, apologize this week for employees posing as students and making inappropriate remarks during some 20 or more online seminars. Recruit acknowledged the dishonesty and inappropriate behavior and expressed its commitment to preventing future incidents.
Chad: Sure.
Joel: Another week, another fuck up in the Indeed family tree. Chad, what's your take?
Chad: Yeah, they got caught. That's what's happening here. Whenever they get caught, they say, "Oh, I'm sorry." And then they try to fuck up again. Yeah, so we actually got a link to the Recruit Holdings 2023 notice of annual shareholders meeting. So, this is just the notice that's going out, what they're looking to talk about try to give a little preemptive idea of what the meeting's gonna be about. There are two categories of directors that they have on board. They've got the independent director and then they just got the plain old directors. From the report, "Compensation for independent directors consist of base salary only, not tied to performance."
Chad: That's a nice gig. Currently, directors have an annual salary pool of $10 million and Recruit Holdings wants to raise it to $11.5 million. A 15% increase in tandem, Recruit Holdings wants to take those independent non-performing motherfuckers and take their potential from $720,000 to $2.2 million max compensation. Why the raise? Well, they say they need to be competitive, and also they're looking to raise the number of seats on the board. What the fuck? This is what happens when nobody is actually in charge of a board. [chuckle] They just get to do whatever the fuck they want, they hire their buddies. They get to add more seats, they chop some heads, they raise anxiety, and then they just go ahead and raise executive wages. From my standpoint, if I, and again, I'm not, but if I was in leadership at Indeed, this would be a huge... You can't do anything other than lead an uprising, immunity, a mutiny and get the fuck out. That's the only thing you can really do. [laughter]
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: I don't know what else you do.
Joel: Yeah. Yeah.
SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Joel: So, Chad, rich people are gonna do what rich people do, and remember buybacks?
Chad: Oh, yeah.
Joel: Buybacks were popular for a long time. And what happened was companies would get government bailouts and then do stock buybacks.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Which, gee, people don't like. So let's figure out some new financial engineering. Let's lay off some people and give ourselves a raise. Ooh, that's gonna bypass all the PR filters, isn't it?
SFX: 60% of the time it works every time.
Joel: Look, the disparity between rich and not so rich is growing. This is indicative of that. No matter what kind of laws or PR hits that you take, companies are gonna find ways to pay the rich people more money. This certainly isn't like, "Oh we're paying them more because we don't want them to be a board of director on another company and leave us." Like, people don't leave boards like that. This isn't like, retaining top talent.
Chad: No.
Joel: This is just rich people getting richer and it's just the way it is.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: And fortunately, people like us can call it out because we have fans that are willing to give us the insight info on what's going on at the company. So, fuck indeed, again, as they cry all the way to the bank about about the news. Now, the Japanese story.
Chad: Yes. [laughter]
Joel: Now, this was like, you and I don't necessarily tune into the Japanese media.
Chad: No. No.
Joel: I had to translate this page. And even then, it didn't come across very well. So I can't really comment intelligently on what happened, but the comments that this story brought in, a thousand plus comments on what I would think would be a pretty mundane story about how upset people were about what happened with people infiltrating this webinar and asking stupid questions or kind of taking over like, this was a big deal from the commenter standpoint. So I can't talk intelligently, but the backlash from the comments that I saw and read, and like, people are really pissed about this. And I don't know a lot about Japanese culture, but I know when you apologize, like it's a big deal.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And like they're really sorry about this. So I think in Japan it's a fairly big deal.
Chad: Well, they were talking about having shills, which pretty much employees that were feeding into asking questions, and then also in the chat section starting to berate some of the individuals who were really supposed to be there. So, yeah. Again, in the US, I think, we're kind of used to this because of all the fucking trolls. But we don't quite have the respect culture that seems like Japan does. So this is a big deal. And again, like you'd said, when I started reading that, I'm like, sounds pretty common over here in the States, but apparently in Japan, not so much.
Joel: Yeah. In the States it's called marketing. In Japan it's called rude. So there you go.
Chad: There you go.
Joel: There you go. All right, Chad. HackerRank has launched an advanced plagiarism detection system powered by artificial intelligence. The system analyses coding behaviour, submission patterns, and question features to identify potential instances of cheating with 93% accuracy by leveraging AI. HackerRank aims to ensure fair assessments and provide developers with equal opportunities while upholding assessment integrity. The company acknowledges the transformative impact of AI on the developer community, and is committed to continuous improvement in its detection system. Chad, what do you make of all this plagiarism?
Chad: Remember playing the whack-a-mole game at Arcades or maybe even Chucky Cheese, that was more your style?
Joel: Of course.
Chad: Bravo to HackerRank for whacking this mole quickly. Now the challenge will be whacking the next one, then the next one. Or, will this even be necessary in a few years, especially since AI is becoming a part of the coding process. So, with the prospect of all coders being equipped with Gen AI as a co-pilot while developing, this whole thing seems good for now, it seems like it not really a band-aid, just kind of like a small bridge that we're just not gonna need. So the real question is, how fast will bots take over coding?
SFX: Shall we play a game.
Joel: Everybody listening and watching, we don't share notes before the show. I literally wrote Whack-a-Mole on my notes. So you stole my whack-a-Mole thunder, Chad. Thanks a lot.
[laughter]
Chad: Sorry about that. Sorry. My bad.
Joel: So 82% of developers in a recent survey think AI will change the future of work. 82%. Well, no shit. Well, if developers who are at the front lines of this think it's going to change work, then it certainly...
Chad: Easily.
Joel: Probably is. And this is a whack-a-mole situation. This is the spammers and this is the black hats and the white hats fighting it out. Plagiarism... I mean, ChatGPT is on a whole new level. I'm hearing them talk about students. There are programmes that will put misspellings in your ChatGPT to make it look more human. And this whole thing is gonna go back and forth. Now, in our industry, what typically happens is, we say we have it, and people just believe that we have it, whether it's AI or ML or Big data, or...
Chad: Yes, yes. Vapor ware.
Joel: SEO or mobile. Like, people just say like, check it off because we have it. And nobody really takes them to task. So that's gonna be an issue in our space of people saying they have plagiarism detection and whether they really do or not. Who's gonna audit that? Nobody. People are just gonna I guess rely on their network and podcasts like ours to figure out who's good and who isn't. Now if you're a buyer of services like this, I think it's a totally fair question to ask, how are you detecting AI generated content? Whether it's a cover letter, whether it's... The resume may not as big a deal, but pre-screening questions, things like that, you need to be asking questions of your vendors because there's a chance that you're gonna fall prey to content that is AI generated, if there's nobody policing it.
Joel: I'm sure there are already APIs out there that people will be able to plug this stuff into their solution which is a million dollar idea. By the way, Chad, if you can create an API to monitor all this AI content, then you've got a boat with some hose on it, if you will. Yeah. This is just something that's gonna be... This is the future. Like black hats, white hats, fighting it out. Like you said, big applause to HackerRank. Look, developers is where this stuff is gonna happen but it's gonna filter down to everything, whether it's PhDs, warehouse workers. Like everyone's gonna...
Chad: It's gonna be expected though, don't you think? I think it's just gonna be expected where it's like, did you use AI to develop this code? And guy's, No. Was like, why not? Everybody else is doing it. Everybody's doing it faster, they're being more efficient, etcetera, etcetera. Why not?
Joel: If you don't care, then sure.
Chad: But why would we care? Like let's say in the next few years, I don't think anybody's gonna care.
Joel: Well, you wouldn't hire a journalist that just submits AI generated content necessarily. Or you may not hire a coder...
Chad: It's content wise.
Joel: Whose job is to write code. Yeah, some jobs you won't care. But if it's, I'm writing code, I'm writing content, I'm writing papers or research, you may wanna think twice about AI generated content. Dude, this is the Wild West. We talked to Ryan at Veritone this week. Like, he even acknowledged, like this is just gonna be wild west stuff. Things will get figured out. But for now hats off to HackerRank for at least acknowledging this is happening and providing some guardrails to protect their customers from getting crappy developers into their system.
Chad: Let's hope.
Joel: Can I interest you in some Robot war games, Chad?
SFX: Shall we play a game?
Chad: It seems like every day. [chuckle]
Joel: Alright. In May approximately 3900 job losses were attributed to AI. That's according to Challenger Gray & Christmas's monthly report. This is the first time AI has been listed as a cause in the report. The tech sector accounted for all the AI related job cuts. So no Shocker, HackerRank is the one that's providing some guardrails. The tech sector accounted for all of them but it's not just tech workers. Of course Paris based Teleperformance known for running call centers has reported significant benefits from integrating chat GPT into its operations. The AI powered solution reduces call links by almost 40% cut staff training time and half and decreases errors by 90% according to the company. However analysts express concern over the impact of AI on Teleperformance business predicting that up to 30% of its volumes may be automated within three years leading to potential margin impact barriers to entry and implications for the wider service economy and layoffs. Chad what's your take on robots?
Chad: So, right outta the... I think it's funny because in the 4000 jobs lost article, other listed reasons for the job cuts were things like market and economic conditions, cutting costs, restructuring mergers and acquisitions. Reasons not listed for cuts; over hiring, shitty business models, and leaders who cut staff to give themselves raises. See what I did there? [laughter] It's amazing. So about 5% of the 80,000 job losses, I think that's under reported, especially listening to the teleperformance information. Teleperformance itself, here's some call center stats from Phone Olo, there are currently 15 million people employed as call center employees. Statista Global market for contract call centers will reach close to 500 billion by 2027. And then replicant, the call center turnover rate can reach 45%. Why is that all important? Margin.
Chad: If I can scale with a chatbot, right? And we're talking about these chatbots today who are actually providing amazing efficiencies for individuals like you and I. I mean, they're really co-pilots, right? So they're 40% better at what they're doing. Their training time is faster by 50%. They can do all those things. What they're doing right now, listen to me kids, what they're doing right now is they're training these chatbots to take over. 30% of the roles [laughter] in, what was it? Four years? No, in three years. There's no way that that's not going to happen. So if you take a look at the 20 to 30% that they're predicting, I think it's gonna be more because Teleperformance is a shitty ass company. [laughter] They're monitoring employees, I mean, just... Anyway, we've talked about them before on podcast. They're going to be probably about by 50%, if not more, my prediction, in three years.
Chad: Why? Take a look at all of the money that's gonna be saved, not to mention scale, right? They can stop hiring people. If they've got a 45% attrition rate, people keep leaving, the robot scales up. And then all you have are people that are actually monitoring and auditing, that is gonna be a much lower staff rate versus what they have today. Call center suck. It's a horrible job. The anxiety, the stress, I mean, it just sucks. So seeing these jobs go away I don't think it's gonna hurt anybody but we've got to be able to take a look at what's the next thing for these individuals to do. Plumbing, AC, maybe being the auditors or what have you, who knows? But we're going to have to create some jobs.
SFX: That escalated quickly.
Joel: So yeah, up to 30% of their volumes will be automated in three years. How about in five years? How about in 10 years? How soon before we get to a hundred percent or 90-80 plus percent? That's gonna be a lot of unemployed call center workers.
Chad: Yeah. It's a lot of margin.
Joel: Yeah. That's an incredible speed at which this shit happens. So, historically, change comes at a snail's pace, from walking, to the horse, to the buggy, to the car, that stuff took decades, if not millennia, in some cases. People had time to sort of adjust, figure it out, new industries came along, new businesses, new technologies. What I'm fearful of is, this is not quicksand, this is the floor crashing in on all of us. And there are a lot of things to consider here. Number one, how do people handle that? That's incredible change. People don't like change. They really don't like change that happens fast. Number two, how do governments handle it? Governments move at a snail pace, right? Like, checks and balances. Unless you're an authoritarian government it takes years if not decades for changes to happen. Right? Number three, how does the market handle it? You mentioned the stock prices in these articles, and we've talked about who is the company with the college courses that talked about AI taking... They're being affected by AI. Tregg... Or Chegg.
Chad: Chegg. Chegg. Yeah. Chegg.
Joel: So Chegg stock crashes from that news. Number four, whether or not job creation and upscaling can happen fast to keep the pitchforks at bay. These are all really important questions, because things are happening at a quicker rate than they ever have. And there's gonna be some bad consequences. You, on our newsfeed, our private newsfeed about the show had an avalanche gif as part of this story. Well, interestingly, Chad, you have about 15 minutes if you get caught under an avalanche to be saved before lack of oxygen, cold temperatures start really fucking your shit up. That's not a lot of time. And an avalanche I think is a perfect metaphor for what's happening here because we only have a short period of time to dig ourselves out of this before people start dying and losing their shit. So that's all I got on that. That went dark quickly. I'm sorry.
Chad: I think the only ones that are gonna save us in this one, are the Europeans. They're the only ones who are actually looking to try to stifle. You might see the stifling progress, but there are guardrails that need to be put in place just in case. I mean, we have to work on those contingency plans. And guess what? Nobody's doing, working on fucking contingency plans. The US sees cash and that's what we're built on. Unfortunately, we're not built on... I mean, the people build the cash but that's not how we see things. So yeah, we're not going to be fixing this, I don't think anytime soon. We're going to have to look for Europe to actually fix this forest which really fucking sucks.
Joel: Yeah. And then you get into the beta of well, government regulation slows up the process. Well, other countries aren't gonna slow up the process, so should we slow up the process? I mean, it's gonna get ugly, Chad. It's gonna get kind of ugly.
Chad: Ooh. Here's some ugly.
Joel: And speaking of ugly, let's talk about some worker woes. Well, hundreds of thousands of UPS workers in the US are considering authorizing a strike this week if a new contract agreement is not reached with their union, the Teamsters, by August 1st. The nationwide UPS strike would be the largest work stoppage in US history affecting the delivery of goods of households and businesses across the country. The union is seeking improved pay benefits and working conditions. But wait, Chad, there's more, there's more. Journalists at two dozen Gannett owned newspapers in the US are staging a two day strike to protest working conditions and criticize the chief executive of Gannett, who used to own Career Builder.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Used to own Career Builder. Yes. We got Career Builder on the show. Thank you. You're welcome. The strike, which is expected to be the largest labor action in Gannett's history comes as journalists accuse the company of under compensation and increasing workloads. Workers of the world unite, Chad, what's your take?
Chad: So, first and foremost, UPS drivers don't have AC. How the fuck does that work? I mean, yeah, they got the cute little shorts and stuff, but my God, how are they working in Houston, Texas without AC in those fucking trucks. Next. So let's go ahead and set the table for salary. UPS drivers, pay is about $24 and 30 cents an hour. So you're talking about over $50,000 a year. It's not a lot of money for a lot of hard work. UPS CEO made 19 million, which is 376 times that a UPS driver. UPS airlines CEO, didn't know they had that, 6 million. UPS International President, 6 million. UPS CFO 7 million. Chief Digital Officer 7.5. Total for all of that $45.5 million. Do I believe that leaders who have more strategic responsibilities should get paid for more?
Chad: Yes. Jesus fucking Christ. Yes. But at a rate of 376 times, that of the people that are actually doing the hard work without AC. No, not even close. Since 1978, CEO compensation has risen 1500% while entry level and middle class wages have stayed stagnant at a mere 18%. How do we fix this? Do we reverse trickle down economics, or do we just make sure that CEOs can't get paid at estimated 30 times more than that of their lowest entry level worker? Right? If that was the case, taking the driver in this case, the CEO would make 1.6 million a year. Who can't live on 1.6 million a year? That's what we've become. Right? We've got to really focus on fair. And in the case of the journalists, it's free and fair press. This is scary, because, I mean, I was in radio before coming into the world of the internet, and we've witnessed the slow death of journalism over the last 20 or so years, because who actually funded the journalists?
Chad: Well, when readership was high, advertisers pay. When listenership was high, advertiser pay. When local news viewership was high, advertisers pay. We stopped reading newspapers, listening to local radio, and watching local TV. Why? Instant access. CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, 24 hours, instant access. Traffic reports that we used to watch or read or listen to on the radio, it's on my phone, instant access. Weather reports, instant access. Free news, free news on my phone. I don't have to pay for that paper anymore. Free and Fair Press has been strangled by free access. And that is what has killed journalism and kids out there. I can't say how much journalism, local journalism, and national too, but mainly local journalism holds politicians and community leaders feet to the fire. And if they're not there, they will continue to run rampant if we don't have journalism in a free and a fair press, that's the scary part of all of this.
Joel: That was really good, Chad. You should run for president on that platform. I can't say it better in terms of local journalism. I will add that, you remember the Representative George Santos, who's maybe the house's biggest douche bag and liar.
Chad: Yeah, yeah.
Joel: Was uncovered by local news.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: It just never got traction. That's the kind of shit that happens when you lose your sort of local media and your journalistic foundations. I do think it sounds a lot like the Hollywood writer strike, anything where corporations can replace people that do writing with automation, is gonna suffer. There's just no two ways about it. And money is not going into support headcount, whether it's... I mean, employers like Classify, it's had a huge impact on local news.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And newspapers. Like we have some blame for that. But I don't see how the journalists win and come back in this. I just think it's a failed push to make Gannett or any newspaper company pay you more money. I do think that the UPS story... By the way, I love that we're bringing Teamsters on the show. We haven't had a Teamsters...
Chad: Jimmy Hoffa. [laughter]
Joel: Jimmy Hoffa reference in a really long time. And that feels to me like an old school labour versus capital sort of fight. And there's a perfect storm of, we're getting more stuff delivered to us than we ever have.
Chad: Oh, yeah.
Joel: We have logistical supply chain issues where the work is hard and it's more valuable than ever. And then you have the fear of competition. Now generally competition says, Well, okay you wanna quit? Go, we'll just hire FedEx people or hire other services 'cause they're workers. What's happening is people who have contracts with UPS are saying, "Well, fuck we're gonna go to FedEx, we're gonna going wherever if you guys can't do the job." There's leverage there that the labour unions at UPS haven't had in a long time. And this is just an old school labour uprising to say like, "Hey, the power is in our corner. We're going to fight for better wages, benefits, et cetera." So, I applaud them and hope that they get what they want, from that perspective. Journalists, history is not on your side. Like, it's not good for you. Kids who are looking to get into journalism, don't do it. Do podcasting instead, it's much more fun and there's probably more money in it. We'll be right back.
Chad: Oh God.
Joel: Oh yeah.
Chad: Here it comes.
Joel: Call Arnold.
Chad: Damn it.
Joel: All right. We got some military news here Chad. The US Air Force has denied a story that circulated at a defence conference. That's probably a party, right? Defence conferences? Claiming that one of its AI powered drones turned on its human operators during a simulation. The Air Force clarified that the story was a "thought experiment" and not based on an actual event. While the incident did not happen or did it, Chad? Or did it? It highlights concerns about the potential unintended consequences of AI in military systems. Chad, you were in the military, what do you make of this, "thought experiment."?
Chad: I think this has happened many more times than we've heard right now. I mean, we've talked about it on the show many times. The military is easily going to militarize drones. They already have in the air. They're going too, for soldiers. Anything that can save, and this is gonna be the narrative, and I understand the narrative is somewhat true, save human life, save American life, then we should do it, right? And that is going to open Pandora's box to this kind of shit. Here's from the article from somebody who... They quoted, the system started realizing that while they did identify the threat, at times, the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat. But, it got its points from killing the threat. The system knew it got the points from killing this threat, much like war games, the movie, right? So what...
SFX: Shall we play a game.
Chad: Yes. So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because the person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective. I mean, it's not thinking like a human being. It's thinking like a computer 'cause it's a fucking computer, kids. No real harm was done to any person yet.
Joel: The Air Force says they remain committed to maintaining human control over AI systems and its operations. Well that's comforting, Chad. I'm sure our enemies feel the same way about controlling everything with humans. Someone call Matthew Brodwick and John Connor, because I'm getting a little nervous here about bots taking us out of the loop and just making decisions on their own. Somebody get me a perrier and a Theragun. I'm going to Vegas.
SFX: Beaver, Las Vegas. Beaver, Las Vegas.
Joel: See you at SHRM Cardboard Chad. We're out!
Chad: We out.
Outro: Wow, look at you, you made it through an entire episode of the Chad & Cheese podcast, or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favourite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap, because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away, and like Chad's favourite western, you can't quit them either. We're out.
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