When AI Steals Your Job, Humans Help and Save The Day

As an artist with words and paints, I loathe AI because it's a plagiarism machine, and on top of that my fears of AI stealing my job came to fruition this week.

At my previous job, I was forced to use AI daily to crank out slop SEO pages to drive people to websites. Ironically, AI overviews are killing web traffic, so SEO companies are hurting, even the ones that heavily lean into AI.

But there is good news.

The humans have come out and supported my family during this hard time.

When AI Steals Your Job, Humans Help

I realize this is a much different piece than what usually shows up on this Denver Broncos dedicated site. But bare with me because I need to thank some random strangers from the internet.

On Tuesday, I went into work like I have for the last nearly two years. I drove into Old Town Fort Collins, parked at the haunted house (literally) that we called our office, and climbed the stairs to my second-floor office.

My boss made it seem like any other day. And an hour and a half later, I was called into the President's (LOL) office to be told I was getting laid off. It came as a shock to my system because the CEO (an AI evangelist/cultist) said they would not be doing layoffs, but that we'd all have to pitch in a little bit more here and there. I gritted my teeth with so many other employees and did just that. Wore multiple hats.

And lets face it, even if we don't enjoy or even really dislike our jobs, everyone's biggest fear is they'll be fired or laid off for no reason at all.

The company is feeling the crunch of AI—again, the irony is not lost on me here—and clients dropping like flies. Some of them can't afford SEO content, some are using AI to write their own content (lmao), and others aren't seeing traffic going to their sites anymore because Google AIO is giving people answers right on the search engine. There's no incentive for people to click through to the website anymore.

And if they're not clicking through, potential customers aren't going to be calling up that small business for any services. Not good, Bob.

For me, yesterday was a difficult day.

It was the third time in four years that I've been laid off. The first came at a small tech startup that was run poorly and ran out of money. The second came as a contract employee at a massive tech company; talk about exploitation on top of exploitation, with no benefits compared to the full-time employees.

And now I'm back to square one again.

All with a house payment and a family (3-year old, wife, dog) to support.

But random strangers have reached out and supported us already.

Bluesky, the Official App of Sports and Official App of Support

OK, I get that GoFundMe is probably the "support app" but the rhyme was too good to not use in the subhead there.

Getting laid off randomly put me into a sort of panic yesterday. I'm still there today, but finally processing this giant life shift about 24 hours later.

I'm going to be OK. We are going to be OK.

And one thing that's given me hope is all the random strangers on Bluesky and the local Fort Collins subreddit who have reached out and helped.

I posted pleas to both sites, both went off like gangbusters.

So, first I want to say thank you to everyone who shared my post on Bluesky about being laid off. That includes Denny Carter, Mike Tanier, Scott Spratt, Mark Schofield; sports guys who I admire for their work and who have huge followings on the site. It also includes a ton of regular accounts like mine, smaller accounts who I know and love, and others who I've never even conversed with.

Secondly, thank you to all the advice I received on the local subreddit. People gave out a ton of website recommendations and other bits of wisdom.

Finally, THANK YOU to the many new paid subscribers to The Broncos Blitz. Many of the folks who have signed up over the last 24 hours I've had the pleasure of conversing with on Bluesky over the last year or so, and some of them I didn't know at all.

I realized two things over the last 24 hours.

1. AI stole my job. I wrote about it back in 2022 when ChatGPT was just starting, and now it's become my reality.
2. When AI steals your job, humans help.

The empathy of humans can never be replicated by robots. And this whole exercise—along with the rise in mutual aid we've seen during the genocide in Gaza, and ICE assault on America—gives me hope that if we ever do find ourselves in a fight against the machines a la The Terminator, we will win.

Paid Subscribers Get a Free Denver Broncos Art Print

For those who have become paid subscribers to The Broncos Blitz, I will be sending you each a print of one of the many artworks I've drawn by hand for the site. There are multiple Bo Nix ones, Sean Payton, even Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets. I'm using some of that paid subscriber money to purchase prints, which I hope will continue to help drive paid subscriptions.

If you would like to help my family get through this tough time, please subscribe to a paid tier today (you will get a free print of your choice!), or leave a tip in the tip jar of any amount. All amounts help.

Thank you, and go Broncos!

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Rich Kurtzman was born and raised in Denver Colorado and attended Colorado State University in Fort Collins in the aughts. He's been a professional writer since 2011, covering Colorado State football and men's basketball, as well as the Denver Broncos, for many outlets. Current Denver Broncos work can be found on Mile High Sports. Previous credits include CBS Denver and The USA TODAY Sports Media Group.