‘Stop Hiring Humans,” declares the billboard. Ava is the AI model pictured in the ad. She is the new hire. Her generically good-looking features are scattered around the San Francisco Bay Area. At first sight they were a bit of a shock. The ads are by now as common as the various brands of driverless cars, or what we used to call taxis.
The historic cable cars still rattle up the steep hills, their bells dinging away, with tourists hanging out straining to get a photo on their phone of a passing Waymo or Zoox. The latter, the new kid on the block, and known locally as a “toaster on wheels”. It also resembles a stagecoach of old, sparing the horses of course. It is weirdly cute.
A crowd gathered recently when one stopped during a street festival, apparently confused by all the walking crowds. The pedestrians cheered – “Go on, go on, you can do it!” – and the toaster on wheels slowly moved forward.
Zoox, the new driverless vehicle on the block, known locally as a ‘toaster on wheels’. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
AI and agentic AI are the new shiny gems to be panned in San Francisco, among the 19th century saloons and the historic Wild West mentality. They are bringing their own trappings of wealth.
San Francisco market rents have risen 22 per cent over the last 12 months to more than $4,500 per month for a one bed. The average property price is $1.6 million.
How will anyone afford to live here any more? And shock, they say even tech workers are being priced out of the all-ruling market. There is talk of young beneficiaries of recent AI IPOs turning up at property viewings and offering share options as downpayments. And of those offers being accepted
Every few weeks tens of thousands of these guys descend on the city for giant tech conferences. And they are mostly guys. They are the new cowboys with lanyards as neckerchiefs, but they are far from wild.
A chef I know recently catered a large party for an AI company. He shook his head at the memory of it.
“Nobody ate, nobody drank, they all stood around and barely even chatted with each other. These guys were in their early 20s and looked bored out of their minds. I ended up taking most of the food away. You know what? We need to show them how to party like we did.”
Yet a few weeks ago at the Burning Man festival, 80,000 or so gathered in the Nevada desert’s heat, sun and mud to get out of their heads and dance, with private jets bringing in the tech guys to land on the temporary sand runway. There’s an upsurge in psychedelic drug taking while many shun alcohol.
Like most US cities, San Francisco still has large numbers of homeless people with addiction issues in certain areas, such as the Tenderloin. There is a drop-in centre called Hope Cafe. My friend Miriam is the baker. “It’s not really a cafe at all, but it has all the trappings of a proper restaurant like taking orders, issuing receipts to customers and serving people proper food. It’s about humanity and dignity,” she says.
The libraries and parks of California are effective day centres for the homeless. There are a few I see regularly down the road here, beside our yoga class. The woman who sits on the steps or inside the library, reading. The middle-aged man in the fashionable yet unclean clothes who walks around talking loudly to himself. And, in the last few weeks a young man, maybe 22, blond long hair, handsome, needs a shower, with rucksack and mat, doing the loop between the park and the library’s free magazines and newspapers. He’s no older than the guys in hoodies putting share options down on houses.
The gap has never been bigger and the midterms are looming. Unexpectedly, rows over data centres have become the new bunfights at the OK Corral. And the sheriffs of AI are suddenly voicing concerns over their posse of robots acting like outlaws.
Downtown they are trialling human style robots dressed in everyday clothes, just to see how we react or if we do at all.
Artisan’s ad showing AI agent Ava upside down. Photograph: Yvonne Judge
I saw a new AI ad today. The same company as before. Ava is now pictured upside down. The ad says “Ava Flipped for Humans”. The inverted Ava is pictured wearing a T-shirt that says “I Heart Humans”. Right.
Opposite Trader Joes, two young women on scaffolding carefully paint a mural. They are standing on a cherry picker handpainting a huge ad. The wall mural attracts onlookers. It depicts a San Francisco with cable cars on Market Street. With flying cars. The caption reads: “Search For An AI Future.” The two artists take a rest.
Seems there are some things we still need creative humans for. For now.
Even AI couldn’t make this up.