AI might just replace me
Last week, my boss shared a new company update in the customer success Slack channel that is shared between myself, him, and another employee.
It was a short announcement and request for the both of us to start utilizing the company's shared email platform's new feature, specifically, a new AI feature. This came just a week after I had informed my boss that I would be starting my postgraduate studies in September and hence would like to start a lighter workload from then onwards.
My first thought was that “Oh no. It has come…”. The company that I work at is a small one (all of which are paid hourly, AFAIK). It wasn't a secret that there is a focus on efficiency, with all the automations set up, mass email campaigns, and our email comms platform being shared across the entire team. That means we all replied to each other's emails, depending on who was free at the time.
Do with that what you will.
It felt a little like a hammer to my already fragile sense of being with the company.
Especially when we were told the new AI feature's efficiency was because it was trained on previous communications we've done.
And that meant it was trained on our writing.
I'm no saint, and I've used my fair share of ChatGPT when I'm trying to console a client or address their concerns during a time of slim patience or mental capacity. I try to come up with a polite, professional, and actionable response. Tenets of what a good response constitutes, in my opinion, at least in services like ours. However, most of my emails were always written with the intention that I provide a personable response to the person I'm speaking to. To express the concern (and panic of messing up the client relationship, to be honest) and to assist and make sure the client receives the feeling that the person on the other side of the screen cares about them.
But now, the AI can replicate that voice. And pretty well too.
Work hasn't been feeling good for more than a year now. It's repetitive, the automations make me feel slimy, and with this now, it makes me feel even worse and disconnected from the work itself. It does feel like what I'm ultimately being paid for is to make sure the AI doesn't screw up (in which it still does, as with any commercial AI tool available).
I don't know exactly what to do about this. I don't think this would necessarily mean I'm about to lose my job in the following weeks or months, but it does mean that work will be even more mindless and repetitive. It would entail reviewing sentences that look like mine but aren't actually mine and fixing incorrect information spewed by the program (happens, but not as frequently as you would think anymore).
Quitting isn't an option just yet, as this is as stable as it can be before I start my postgraduate later in the year, but, there is this part of me that wants to just… check out completely.