Silicon Valley has finally automated its last stubbornly human task: writing the executive departure message. In our plainly absurd version of events, senior OpenAI executive Brad Lightcap, who is leaving the company to start a new venture, will build an AI devoted entirely to saying “excited for the next chapter” while maintaining the correct level of strategic wistfulness.
The system will supposedly generate a gracious tribute to former colleagues, a vague promise to reveal more soon, and precisely three rocket emojis approved by corporate counsel. One fictional transition consultant described the product as “a decisive breakthrough for executives who have ideas, capital and networks, but cannot possibly be expected to locate the word ‘journey’ unaided.”
The actual nature of Lightcap’s proposed venture is not detailed in the supplied account, which leaves ample room for the traditional technology-sector ritual: depart an organisation devoted to transforming humanity, establish another organisation devoted to transforming humanity, and explain that this one will transform it more efficiently. History, as ever, declines to take notes.
