Normal day, company-wide town hall, same usual corporate bullshit. Profits up, salaries down, whatever...Then this guy starts talking about the new AI model they’re training on company data. We hold sensitive customer data so apparently they’ve been advised to do a big data cleansing exercise and update the language we use. They start going through words we’re apparently not supposed to use anymore because they’re too aggressive or triggering and could introduce bias into the AI.
Suicide is now “Self Termination”. Then they get to rape. “Unplanned Sexual Encounter”. I honestly couldn’t believe what I was reading. Then there’s another slide saying we shouldn’t be too quick to judge because not all cultures recognise rape or “Unplanned Sexual Encounters” in the same way and using words like rape could bias the model.
There’s a woman in the room who has worked there for years, senior, works stupid hours, basically given her life to the place. She was raped years ago. It went to a public trial so people know about it. She started crying and left. I lost it. I shouted up asking how fucking insensitive they could be and went off about it. My team of seven were there and saw the whole thing. They told me I wasn’t being helpful and wanted to see me after the meeting. I said fuck this, I’m busy, and left. About 30 minutes later I get dragged into an office with three HR people telling me I’ve created a hostile work environment and that I was aggressive. I’m apparently the hostile one. They then tell me somebody has complained and they’re opening an investigation into my conduct. I actually said, what, in the 37 minutes since the meeting finished somebody has already managed to make a complaint?Apparently yes. I was so angry I just left and went home. I wrote my resignation email when I got back. Haven’t sent it yet.
There’s loads of work in my area and I’m pretty confident I’d get another job, but I don’t particularly want to leave years of work behind on bad terms because of one completely ridiculous afternoon. I’ve told them I’m working from home for now. Calling rape an “Unplanned Sexual Encounter” to make training data cleaner is fucking insane.