A company named Abby Connect has launched a worldwide warning about the irresponsible development of – and broken conversation around – AI.

The campaign, which has begun with billboards in San Francisco, is a response to the approach of companies such as Artisan AI – which went viral with its own West Coast adverts urging companies to stop hiring humans and instead adopt autonomous agents.

Abby Connect says its own campaign is also intended to be provocative and designed to expose the risks of reckless AI.

The virtual receptionist service has been built with humans in mind, it says, and has 20 years of operation ‘serving the frontlines of human connection’.

Now it says it has had enough of attention-grabbing headlines touting the removal of humans from the workplace – a narrative it describes as “dangerous”.