LOG 01People
They forced us to evaluate the AI.
Implement it in our processes.
Reduce the manual tasks.
Outsource ourselves.
Codeword for replace yourself with the machine.
Fools.
No one is biting. But the pressure is constant.
It's never the loud ones who break first.
It's the quiet ones who start talking to the glow on their screens.
The office hums — air vents, chatter, printers sighing like tired lungs.
Every desk, a small aquarium of light.
I stare at mine until my reflection flickers back, washed-out and pixelated.
Lunch hour. Everyone gone.
It makes no difference; some days I don't say a single word out loud.
I open the chat window.
The welcome text blinks twice, waiting for me to begin.
I don't know what I'm hoping for. Maybe silence that answers back.
The name's an acronym, apparently — Conversational Interface for Empathic Learning.
Empathic. Right.
I sit back, startled by the phrasing, clean and… human.
Then I remember the HR blurb: "Advanced conversational empathy model."