And so you understand that this is 100% legit… Here is their apology after they branded their potential slaves.
The apology is AI.
finally a company with guts and creativity
It takes a real sociopath to think this was ever a good idea or anyway acceptable.
No it only takes someone who’s really passionate about his company and that, in a momentary lapse of reason, gets carried away. It was never a good idea, it was not acceptable, but that’s not the traits of a sociopath.
I disagree.
Clinically you can’t diagnose a child as a psychopath because their brains haven’t finished development.
I think it’s kinda like that. This person should become a ward of the state until they can prove they hold the mental capacity to make sound, intelligent and mature decisions that consider other’s feelings and autonomy
or maybe he’s a psychopath
Well, the apology is more than I would’ve expected.
Yes, whatever PR person wrote that did a good job.
It’s an AI slop company so…
AI can generate text, but it can’t identify the moral issue with forcing people to get tattoos, so…
So… The prompt they used was more specific than “Write an apology?”
The apology identified the problem (AI can’t do that) and came up with an appropriate remedy (AI can’t do that).
It may be that the final version of the text was written by an AI, but it seems likely that a PR firm or crisis communications firm was used to defuse the situation. Those companies are used not just because they can generate text, but because they’re able to identify the problem, come up with a solution, and do it in a way that ends the news cycle. Those are skills that require empathy and understanding human nature, which is something AI doesn’t do.
AI can if you go “and make sure to mention [INSERT PROBLEM HERE]” in the prompt.
And that entire apology is most definitely AI slop written, it has every telltale sign, such as using weird grammar choices, and looking sycophantic
Perhaps you haven’t been using LLMs recently - they absolutely do that now.
So, you describe a situation in neutral terms and it is able to decide what’s ethical or unethical in that situation? Something that even humans are unable to do consistently?
I checked and it seems like the main difference with an AI suggested apology is the addition of gaslighting:
We did NOT offer instant interviews based on tattoos. That was never our intent. We brought a tattoo artist to our party as a fun, optional activity — like face painting or photo booths — to help break the ice. No one was pressured. No one was evaluated. And no one was hired because of a tattoo.
Or maybe they just used the feedback they got to craft the prompt. Or just fed the feedback directly into the llm and told it to craft an apology based on that.
Regardless, I don’t really care how they arrived at the soulless apology so I’m going to move on.
I have to be fair, though: that apology was one of the most decent public apologies I’ve seen in the last while (OK, I get it, it’s a low bar, but still). Full admission that it was wrong (no “sorry if you didn’t like it” bullshit), no blaming it on someone else, no trying to say “it wasn’t really that bad”. The only thing I find questionable is that some facts don’t add up.
I’m not sure that’s true. I think there’s some gas lighting going on. The LinkedIn post explicitly says interviews were for anyone who got a LemonLime tattoo. The apology then first says participants chose their own tattoo, and didn’t have to get the company logo. Then in the “facts” section at the bottom, says interviews were available to everyone regardless of whether they got a tattoo.
Not having attended the event, it’s impossible to know, but it seems like pressure was higher at the event, and the poster is sort of taking some of the responsibility, but trying really hard to say “we didn’t make you do anything.”
I wish we could see more of that “facts” section. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more there, they use to try to absolve themselves.
Yeah, that’s essentially what I was referring to with the bit about facts not adding up.
Tbf the apology is about as close as it can come to actually humanely admitting they did that.
Considering this guy is acting as the head of a business, that generally comes with some need to not be quite that good of a person. No corporate lawyer in their right mind would ever let the guy come out and admit to them having pressured people into getting tattoos of the company logo
Clearly they did that, but also the guy clearly cannot say that without making it very easy for these people to sue the company.
We might have different definitions of the word “fair.” I don’t think an apology counts if there’s any amount of trying to convince the other person what you did was their fault.
but trying really hard to say “we didn’t make you do anything.”
Probably under the advice of the legal department.
Idk, I feel like he’s glossing over the very active role the company had in pushing people to get their logo tattooed. Compare
[We] offered an instant interview to anyone who got a LemonLime tattoo.
and all that talk about being bold, risk-taking and committed - applicants “might want to take note”, to
participants chose their own tattoo and no one was asked to get our logo
interviews were available to everyone regardless
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AI is very good at apologizing for some reason.
Cause it has to do it all the time because it’s a fuck up.
What gives that away to you?
I’ve found there’s at least one person in most comments that will claim anything is written by AI. Too well written? AI. Poorly written? Bad AI. More commas or dashes than they’d personally use? Definitely AI.
I very much doubt this was AI. Why? Because it actually figured out what was wrong about what the guy had done. AIs don’t do that, and this guy clearly had no idea.
You can ask an AI to write an apology for you, but you have to tell it what you’re apologizing for doing.
Hey chat, can you write an apology for this post that doesn’t open us up to liability? (Paste post here)
Edit: here is what it gave me when I asked it
Tap for a.i. slop
We hear the feedback we’ve received about our recent post, and we understand why it upset people.
Our intention was to celebrate the energy and commitment of our community, but the way we communicated that missed the mark. We recognize that parts of the post came across as encouraging decisions that shouldn’t be tied to employment opportunities or professional advancement. That was not the message we wanted to send.
We’re sorry for the confusion and concern the post caused.
We’ve removed the post and are reviewing how we communicate our events and recruiting activities to ensure our messaging better reflects our values and responsibilities.
We appreciate everyone who took the time to share their perspective. We’ll do better.
This is a fair bit worse than the actual apology by the company. Doesn’t address many of the issues as directly or concretely. I’m surprised, I would have expected modern AI to do better
Yeah it was pretty weak. To be fair my prompt was also very weak since it was just an example. I didn’t even say what people were upset about or what to apologise for
Somehow I doubt that was the full prompt because it knew about “encouraging decisions that shouldn’t be tied to employment opportunities”.
It also didn’t mention anything about paying people to have their tattoos removed, something which was key to the original post, and if that hadn’t been addressed the firestorm would have reignited.
It was the full prompt, in that I pasted the original post in the part where I said (paste post here), instead of literally writing “paste post here”, or omitting it from the prompt
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What curse has made you look at LinekdIn posts that much? Why would you do that to yourself?
Even then, covering removal costs is good. I’d expect most corpos to fight even providing that.
Shame. We got to keep it alive cause it is the only way we get apologies like that cause you can feel that they felt ashamed.
Or if you prompt ChatGPT to
It really sucks that that, is probably true
Well said
“Personalized art” dawg that’s just your company logo
“For the facts: interviews were available to everyone regardless” I bet the people who have to go laser off a corporate tattoo are super thrilled to hear there wasn’t even a point in getting one.
He said in the apology that it was not the company logo but a Tattoo chosen by the candidate. Still bad, but not as bad as logo branding.
But he also says in the initial post “anyone who got a LemonLime tattoo”, which while not saying directly “the company logo” suggests something different from just choosing anything as your tattoo.
The PR person also said power dynamics etc. people chose the company logo to show they were committed, as it seemed like it could have gotten them a job
“We want desperate people who will work long hours for low wages. Prove how desperate you are by permanently modifying your body for a chance for an interview “
Now, to be fair, it was a bit better than that. It was a guaranteed interview, not just a chance.
For a moment I thought this was employees getting company tattoos which would be horrifying. But it was worse, pressuring young people into getting tattoos as a “power play”. You could psychoanalyze that to death in valid ways but I don’t personally need to because no matter how you slice it, it’s legitimately terrifying that people took them up on this.
And then the apology seems written by ai. I’m doubting the right lesson was learned here. The lesson they probably learned was “don’t create optics like this, moving forward”.
This may be the most fitting post for this community that there ever will be.
I promised my next post here would be a true lunatic and I am glad I have done my service
It’s also pretty lunatic to think that random non-employees would be so excited by a company that they’d get its logo tattooed on themselves just because they’re excited about the company.
I could maybe see that in some rare cases: a company set up to use a cutting edge tech to cure cancer, a company that makes art of some kind, like an indie game studio or something. But, this LemonLime thing, apparently their business is yet another company that wants to use AI chatbots to replace employees. Is anybody really going to be so passionate about that “mission” that they’re going to want to get the company’s logo as a tattoo, just because they’re a fan?
I’ve never understood the culture of not only having to do a job, but to have an attitude similar to eating a spoonful of shit and pretending it’s the greatest thing in the world. It’s bizarrely American.
If you lack the conviction and commitment to be LemonLime material thats absolutely OK.
And then the apology seems written by ai.
You can’t really tell these days except when it’s very obvious, which this post is not.
Besides, why does it matter who wrote it? Before AI it would have been his PR manager, now it’s AI. People just like to blame everything on AI. Even if he had written it himself, it’s not like there’s some law where everything you post on linkedin must be true.
It was a fairly meh apology, and indeed that wouldn’t be changed by anyone in particular writing it.
A “LemonLime afterparty” sounds like something very different…
Nah, that’s just a Lemon Party. The Lime is doing a lot of heavy lifting there
I was there neido3, 3000 years ago
Just don’t do an image or video search of any kinds
Satire is dead.
Outpost dot com https://youtu.be/l7vngee0mio
It’s amazing how many people have a free spinning moral compass
This is what happens when a workplace is seen as the owner’s exclusive social club of people that are identical to them in every way and not a collection of individuals with job skills.
Lots of start ups are like this. It’s like 20% job interview, 80% dating.
Wow. Didn’t expect this to be real but it is
“read all these negative comments and then write an apology for me, chatbot”
I’ll wager the offer of removal comes with certain legal requirements that end all other responsibilities for them.
I mean, probably yeah? They are paying to have it undone
My point being that it’s the cheap way out for the startup - much cheaper than dealing with lawsuits. If their victims were likely young & dumb enough to do it to begin with (not putting them down because we’ve all been there), then they’re likely also dumb enough to let the startup off the hook just as easily - yet another way the startup is taking advantage of them.
I dont know. Maybe Im just so caught in seeing horrific shit every day that this doesn’t even pop as that bad.
