A firm that is using AI to locate ancient shipwrecks is sending out a call to seafarers to salvage sunken treasure. The general impression of the state of the tech job world might be that people are being fired left and right, and the only open jobs are AI-related. But what if you could use your sailing and diving experience all the same? That’s what AE Studio, a software consultancy and AI research firm, is looking for: a literal pirate to hunt for treasure in the ocean. The work location is “extremely remote.”
The requirements are quite extensive, requesting a lifetime of nautical experience, diving certifications, and the ability to do so “in conditions insurance companies decline to cover,” plus bureaucratic handling of permits, ports, and sea creatures. Bonus ballast includes having pre-1800 salvage experience, proficiency in Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch, sailing certifications, owning your own dinghy, and “operational experience in Somalia, Hormuz, or Malacca” — clearly indicating this job is not for the weak of mast or faint of sail.
Applicants ticking all the boxes in the cargo manifest can expect a compensation package inspired by 17th-century privateer commissions: equity in this new venture (retained when it’s spun off AE Studio Skunkworks), cash “weighted heavily toward upside” of the $50k-$500k range, and a share of the plunder. The company handles logistics and legal costs.
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If by now you’re wondering what this has to do with AI, the explanation is fairly simple: AE Studio claims it’s using AI to go through 80 million pages of records spanning five centuries of Spanish colonial paperwork. The data includes nautical, admiralty, and insurance writings, and the final goal is to locate lost shipwrecks and their sweet, juicy booty in the areas most likely to contain them after cross-referencing the info.
As “the model does not swim,” prospective buccaneers act as the proverbial robot arm for the actual search-and-plunder operations. The firm does warn that the first few dives are bound to result in empty hands. Amusingly, AE Studio appears to draw a mathematical parallel between the reward of falsifying historical records to hide treasure and incentive-driven alignment failures in AI training.
AE Studio went as far as to post a quartet of not-really-hidden coordinates of potential work sites. Drawing on my Portuguese lineage as a bona fide sailor (and totally not on Claude’s research abilities), the sample spots in question likely refer to:
- 24°52’14″N 81°39’08″W: west of Key West, Florida, the wreck site of Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha, lost in a hurricane, in 1622.
- 27°21’02″N 80°17’55″W: Florida’s “Treasure Coast”, where eleven Spanish ships went glub-glub in 1715.
- 15°04’31″N 75°58’12″W: off of Cartagena, Colombia, seemingly part of Spanish shipping lanes; 1739.
- 06°12’47″S 38°22’04″E: the only dry-land point near the coast of Tanzania; 1798.
Despite its whimsical and playful nature, the job listing is real, and AE Studio’s Skunkworks division is known for its off-the-wall projects. As the description mentions equity and profit sharing on recovered booty, it’s possible, if not likely, that the project eventually becomes its own subsidiary, attracting entrepreneurial pirates. I was looking for a career change, anyway, and it’s good to revisit my roots.
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