How one New Orleans developer is tackling AI anxiety

State of play: AI use in small businesses is growing rapidly, the AP has reported, and it's also affecting mental health among those employees, Sus says.

• His business, Susco, builds custom software and supports AI-enablement to drive revenue rather than reduce workforce, Sus says.

• "I feel like we're on very firm ethical ground with our approach," he says. "But [some employees] do feel on a macro level that AI is bad."

Zoom in: To smooth those edges, Sus has offered additional mental health support to his team, a reaction he says was inspired in part by how COVID changed the social contract at work.

• He's also having a lot more one-on-ones with staffers to help them navigate admittedly bigger volumes of work that AI now makes possible.

What he's saying: "One thing that is difficult that I do not know how to solve right now is [helping the people who] question the morality of doing AI," he says.

• "Some people are like, 'oh, wow, we're going to cure cancer in two years.' But on the flip side, maybe we're going to have Terminator."

The bottom line: "AI is here to stay," Sus says.

• And that means addressing a newly complicated workforce, too.

The big picture: The latest existential crisis in the world of AI landed about 10 days ago when ex-Anthropic AI researcher Jacob Coxon set off a series of leaders admitting concern that the tech "could kill us all by the end of the decade."

• The cascade of agreement turned into a call from AI's biggest leaders to pause development in lieu of creating new safety measures.