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(n.)
A person kept on staff less for the work, which is automated, than for the optics of still employing people.
The new marketing manager suspected he was a shamehire when his only remaining duty was appearing in promotional videos.
Does it ring true?
From the future, or already here?
The inversion of the Mechanical Turk, Wolfgang von Kempelen’s 1770 chess “automaton” that hid a person inside to make a machine look intelligent; the shamehire hides the machine, putting a person in front to make a company look human.
Future Words: A Non-Obvious Glossary of Terms That Don’t Exist (But Soon Will) collects all 100, each with its example sentence and coinage notes, from the bestselling authors of The Future Normal. Hardcover, October 20, 2026.