AI is conducting job interviews more and more widely. And while it may be anxiety-inducing for some—as they attempt to figure out what a robot deems hirable—others are rage-baiting the technology for the lolz in skits online.
In one recent viral video shared to X, content creator Nick Reid hilariously trolled his AI interviewer, “Karen,” who was seemingly screening him for a job at Burger King—one he clearly didn’t want.
Mind you, Karen isn’t a real BK “employee”: ”We do not use, nor are we aware of any Franchisee across the U.S. or Canada using a tool like this,” Burger King told Fast Company in a comment. But the comedy skit still highlights how awkward interacting with AI bots can be.
And for viewers fed up with the AI revolution, it may be more than a little cathartic to watch.
In the video, which has racked up nearly 8 million views, Reid appears shirtless and with a shoe on his head and introduces himself as Crangeus McBasketball. “Why on Earth do you have a shoe on your head?” Karen replies, while he laughs in her face.
Mr. McBasketball continues to mock the AI by telling it he’s extremely busy and responding to its questions in more and more ridiculous ways. When the AI asks if he would be able to reliably get to shifts at the restaurant, he responds by saying, “Yeah. I have feet.” Karen’s not having it: “That is an incredibly odd way to answer a simple question.”
But this isn’t the only corner of the internet in which “jobseekers” are taking the mickey out of AI avatars. In another video shared to LinkedIn, a man trolls his AI interviewer by speaking utter gibberish. Again, the AI doesn’t mince words.
“This is an absolute waste of my time,” it tells him. “I don’t know if you are having a breakdown or if you simply lack the basic capacity to speak English,” it says.
YouTuber Graham Raabe recently took a swing, too. In a video that now has over 6.3 million views on YouTube and additional ones on X, the creator staged a fake interview with the purpose of pitting two AIs against one another. The creator brings his own bot to the interview, whom he introduces as his “representative,” then excuses himself from the room. Hilarity ensues when the two AIs are left to talk amongst themselves circuitously without an agenda and zero human awareness.
The AI rage-baiting trend is undoubtedly funny. But the comedy videos also sort of demonstrate how sophisticated the AI interviewers actually are.
While there have been some cases of AIs glitching out or getting confused, even when interviewers are purposefully trolling bots, the AIs seem to be responding in a more and more humanlike fashion—like showing frustration with having their time wasted, or recognizing that the candidate is not actually making an effort.
Yet, at the same time, they’re also still far from human; Raabe’s AI “interviewer” and “representative” cross-talked in circles frequently and spent over a minute repeatedly saying goodbye to each other even after Raabe left the room.
Jokes aside, while some find real job interviews with AI to be totally cringe, others actually see its value: According to a 2025 study from the University of Chicago, interviews conducted by AI may actually lead to an increase in job offers. The survey found that AI interviews led to a 12% increase in offers, as well as a 17% increase in 30-day retention.
Of course, many are frustrated with non-human interviews taking off, thus the trend’s emergence in the first place. Candidates often want to connect with an actual human to get a feel for a company, and they also don’t like the fact that AI is replacing so many real people for certain tasks. This comedic content taps into that.
Sure, the real thing may have real benefits. But for those who can’t take the AIs seriously, or are overall fed up with the surge in AI taking over tasks, trolling the bots nobody asked for seems like a spot-on human response.
