ravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, offered to The New York Times, their AI services in order to mitigate the effect of the strike from the
NYT’s tech workers.
The strike was announced this Monday by the NYT Tech Guild, announcing that they have set November 4th as their deadline. The workers who are now striking are the ones who provide software support and data analysis for the company. The reason for the strike was that their requests were not met as theory asked for an annual 2.5% wage increase and to have a two-day in-office policy, and other requests.
They wrote on X “But the company has decided that our members aren’t worth enough to agree to a fair contract and stop committing unfair labor practices,”
Kathy Zhang, the guild’s unit chair also said “They have left us no choice but to demonstrate the power of our labor on the picket line,”.
As a response, AG Sulzberger, New York Times publisher criticized the strike that also came only two days ahead of the US presidential elections “Hundreds of millions of people are depending on The Times’s journalism on Election Day and afterward, and it is troubling that the Tech Guild would try to block this public service at such a consequential moment for our country.”.
At this time, on X, Perplexity’s CEO offered its help to the New York Times, saying “Hey AG Sulzberger @nytimes sorry to see this. Perplexity is on standby to help ensure your essential coverage is available to all through the election. DM me anytime here.”.
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However, the response received by the people from the social media platform X, was not a very good one, as the majority of them accused him of being a scab. This term stands for people who are willing to do the work of striking people, being considered disrespectful behavior when it comes to equity and labor. This act limits workers' chances of receiving their asked conditions, also limiting their power.
Even though Srinivasa might just have just wanted to offer its help in order for people to receive their information and updates on election day, his move was not seen positively.
Going further he replied to TechCrunch posts on X about the topic, saying that “the offer was *not* to ‘replace’ journalists or engineers with AI but to provide technical infra support on a high-traffic day.”
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