Submitted 2 days ago by resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world to aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/03/12/ai-companies-try-to-pay-staff-in-ai-tokens-not-money/
cross-posted from: awful.systems/post/7579135
I owe my SOUL․md to the company store
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpoCzQ-va94&list=UU9rJrMV… - video
…libsyn.com/20260312-ai-companies-try-to-pay-staf… - podcasttime: 6 min 57 sec
They’re trying to reinvent company scrip? In the United States, payment in scrip became illegal in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
call me back when my landlord decides AI tokens are acceptable for rent
Odd your would say that, guess what the company’s new venture is?
They also need to be accepted for groceries and drugs.
This idea was most recently floated by Thibault Sottiaux at OpenAI: [Twitter, archive]
I am increasingly asked during candidate interviews how much dedicated inference compute they will have to build with Codex.
Aren’t these candidates asking about token budgets for doing their job? This has nothing to do with compensation…
They likely don’t know their staff have lives outside of the company and assume they are on board with everything as they are a family.
A plot point in Terry Pratchett’s book Going Postal was postage stamps being used as currency, because they were backed by the postal system, which was seen as trustworthy.
This is a similar line of thinking, but far more delusional, as an AI company is nowhere near as trusted as the postal service.
US Forever stamps are inflation-proof, too.
AI tokens, I’m not so sure.
Except these stamps can’t even be handed over to someone else so you can’t even pay for anything with them. So the delusion is that you’re going to want to spend a significant part of your income on LM tokens no matter what.
The new company scrip.
Still illegal.
yet far more useless than company scrip
The US is feudal now. There are no laws except the whim of the owning class.
At least you could buy food with company scrip.
Seems like they just have excess capacity and need some way to use it
You know I just checked, and my landlord doesn’t take AI tokens.
How big is the token? If its heavy enough we could use it to beat the landlords to death
They’re going to have these giant data centers, and they will have residences next door, and a small little town will grow up around it, and the only money allowed will be company scrip, and these people will trapped, essentially slaves.
You load 16 gigs, and what do you get? Sudo apt update && apt upgrade, Admin dont you call on me, cause I can’t compute, I owe my soul to the LLM.
Omg this needs to be turned into a proper cover/parody of the original song. Would be amazing and popular i am sure.
💯
What’s is that good for?
Owing your soul to the company store?
This has always been the goal
When society finally crumbles and the people storm the white house I have dibs on that gold wall sconce from home depot. The one on the left side, in that room where the lamp is, by the end table.
The Business Insider article this article references makes a big stretch to try to frame it as compensation:
In other words, access to AI may soon matter as much as access to a fat salary and juicy equity awards. As a coder in the AI era, if you don’t have access to massive compute, you might end up producing far less software than your colleagues, threatening your career prospects.
But what they’re talking about is pretty clearly a business expense and not payment, because it’s something they only get to use at work in order to do their job.
That’s stupid. That’s like saying “instead of paying you a livable wage, here’s some pants! I mean you need to wear pants for work right? You can use them at home too!”
Mf really out here thinking we use AI let alone wear pants in our own dang home. We want to cold hard cash! 💶💶💶!!! Lol
Can’t pay ‘em if you got no revenue
Because AI companies are running out of money?
Any employee willing to be laid by token or crypto gets what they deserve. The only reason these companies can get away with this crap is because the proletariat are allowing it.
You need a job, and you want it to be exciting; that’s understandable. Maybe you’re trying to break into the industry. Yes, it’s tough. People will tell you that you’ve got to pay your dues or some other “toe the line” bullshit.
People need to realize that companies are not friends, they are a means to an end. And you are their means to an end. They will use you, just like you will use them. If they want you to work pong hours for as little pay as they can get away with, walk away. There are other jobs out there. They may not be glamorous, but they are out there.
“Don’t take wooden nickels”
Steinbeck
No one ever pays me in gum :/
That gum you like is going to come back in style.
It’s time to start demanding we be paid our wages in gold fucking nuggets.
Or at least dino nuggets.
Funny idea, but never going to happen, not legal.
Yet.
If only WorldCom had thought of paying employees in long distance minutes (they got for free at work), they’d still be around today, under theory that employees would still have worked there.
spacesatan@leminal.space 9 hours ago
This is the dumbest shit I have ever read. And I don’t mean conceptually, I mean everybody playing improv on what actually happened.
Some guy says ‘during interviews now I ask how much compute budget I’ll have access to’
Every dumbass since then: ‘omg company scrip???’
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
The problem is that it definitely feels like something a libertarian tech bro would try.
It’s also not entirely false
AAA@feddit.org 8 hours ago
More relevant: Sam Altman floated the idea two years ago. link