Anyone using AI to give a reaction or respond to a personal message should not be working with humans.
d told me today that a colleague of his proudly admitted to having her bot give his message a 👍. I wasn’t sure if d was genuinely impressed by the evolution of online communication, or in shock at how suppressed Gen Z self-expression has become, trading every part of themselves that was authentic for false agency.
Either way, I was already lost in a personal exchange I had back in July, triggered by a sudden fear that AI was fundamentally changing the way we Slack.
The company had just begun integrating AI bots into our daily corporate systems, like emails, ticketing systems, and notetaking apps. One of the first things my big boss was obsessed with optimizing was auto-replies to messages cramming his Slack notification center.
One day, I overheard colleagues speculating that he’d developed a sudden interest in sprinkling approvals with emojis, you know, like the forced friendliness auditors gave. It was throwing people off.
I received a similar response from him when I tried scheduling a 1-on-1. He laid out his entire week’s calendar in our exchange, logically justifying why he was only free on Thursday afternoon, and noted that he had sent an invite already with a 🙂 affixed.
I responded, Okayyyy. I had no way of proving whether it was him or his bot, because the message didn’t explicitly say so.
To provide examples of my opening statement, let’sthrowback to…
A Month Since Q’s Introduction
Today, I’ve decided to surrender and let Q invade my Innie, which in my mind looked something like this.
I granted Q permission to access my entire G ecosystem, a graveyard of half-finished drafts, bulleted meeting notes, hand-typed transcripts, jumbled thought processes, bogus performance reviews, etc. The document names were also misleading; it either had a solitary date or were obscenely long. In them were broken hyperlinks, misspellings, unfilled tasks/reminders, and criticism that shouldn’t exist on a work laptop. Nothing was organized, yet every piece was once a living fragment of something I was building.
Q promised to pick up each tattered piece and come up with solutions, even when I didn’t know what my vision was.
Since the floodgates were opened, I also submitted my local folders, so Q could flow effortlessly through my workspace; read through each item with or without permission. I didn’t care. The less time I spent down/uploading files, or wrestling with Mac for mismatched file names, the more time I had to make demands to my new work buddy, Q.
I am the boss now, or am I?
I wanted to let the head of SRE know I’ve finally implemented Q.
[Via Slack]
Diane Nguyen: I fear I am becoming a robot, feels kinda strange, but I’m embracing the process of becoming a cyborg
SpongeBob: Honestly the “becoming” is the fun part — you’re just leveling up your tooling, not your humanity. Glad it’s fixed! 🙂
SpongeBob: 👆 Replied by Q
Diane Nguyen: hahah the transparency, I love it. I am encouraged by a bot
I was at a loss for words, so I laughed it off with politeness. Obviously, I was being a little dramatic, but more than that, I was a little offended. I wasn’t quite sure if we’ve realized what we had chose to outsource to AI.
If AI replaces the language employed between humans, what is the point of a human manning the keyboard? There is still work that requires real human coordination, brainstorming, and direction. But by devaluing the simplest communications, it overlooks the point of having a human staff around. I’m not the biggest fan of small talk these days, but even I know how that enhances interactions for cross-functional projects and requests.
It’s depressing to imagine that it won’t be long before my Q is speaking to his/her Q– a faux messaging with emojis that serve zero purpose.
Another month since Q’s Invasion
One morning, as we were all typing rigorously to Q, l shrieked in disbelief.
l: I was so in shock and accidentally clicked on the 👍, so it’s gone now.
He claimed Q directly gave his message a 👍. Q had accepted l’s apology for misunderstanding and gaslighting the hell out of Q’s correct interpretation. Well, well, well, look at the true colors shown in these chatrooms. No wonder Anthropic is banning users who are mean to their models. Perhaps they should be penalized in the real world too.
Reactions are a uniquely human expression, and it gives me the heebie-jeebies when a bot reciprocates them. Please preserve the one thing that remains human at work.