This HR company tried to treat AI bots like people — it didn’t go over well
Image: Lattice
“Today Lattice is making AI history,” CEO Sarah Franklin wrote in a July 9th blog post. “We will be the first to give digital workers official employee records in Lattice. Digital workers will be securely onboarded, trained, and assigned goals, performance metrics, appropriate systems access, and even a manager. Just as any person would be.”
On July 12th, after a very predictable backlash, Lattice posted an update saying it “will not further pursue digital workers in the product.”
Here’s a sample of the responses to Lattice’s original announcement:
“I have questions,” Hebba Youssef, chief people officer at Workweek, said on LinkedIn. “My biggest one: why??”
“Based on my experience in and around AI and HR, it appears to me that we’ve…