A reader writes:
My manager, Athena, has very poor soft skills and often comes across as aggressive, questioning, micromanaging, and dismissive. This happens both in person and over email and instant messaging. In writing, her spelling and grammar are also inconsistent and her phrasing is often brief or abrupt.
Recently, my coworkers and I have noticed a huge improvement in some of her emails and chat messages. Emails and messages that used to be rude and aggressive have now become warmer and softer with correct spelling and grammar. In theory, this is the change that everyone in his direct reports was desperately seeking, except there has been no change in his personal communications. Her tone is still angry, her approach is still aggressive, and the feedback discussion still feels like an interrogation.
We’re pretty sure she’s using AI to rewrite her written communications, as she’s talked openly about using the cloud to help her write emails and project reports. It’s also not consistent – most of his text communication is the same as before, maybe 30-40% is the new and improved version.
Although it’s technically better to get at least a few non-aggressive emails from our boss, it feels weird and disingenuous. On the one hand, it’s good that she recognizes the need for improvement, and it’s a relief that some of her emails sound like they come from the pleasant, patient manager we wanted. On the other hand, the contradiction is so obvious that it feels like she’s masking a deeper problem with who she really is. As one colleague said, “I get email from Athena or I get email from the cloud.”
I know there’s not much we can do either way, but is it fair for me and my coworkers to feel disrespected by apparently AI-generated emails and texts? Would love to hear your opinion on the ethics and optics of this type of AI use.
I don’t know, it feels like at least a partial victory to me. You used to receive emails from negative, dismissive Athena, but now you (at least sometimes) get emails from the kinder, more socially appropriate Cloud.
The problem is that negative, dismissive Athena still controls you the rest of the time.
I’m really interested to know whether people like Athena who use AI in this way will, over time, begin to learn how to adopt warmer tones. I’ve long been convinced that people who default to Athena-like communication don’t really know how to imagine what different language or different tone of voice would sound like. They think being hot means talking a lot of fake things (which it doesn’t mean at all) or that they have to suppress everything to the point of being meaningless (which it doesn’t mean either). And so over time, there can be significant learning benefits to the cloud by seeing what it does in its communications. Or not, who knows. But I’ll be really interested to see how it turns out.
You also see the opposite: People who are too passive and indirect in their communication cannot imagine a healthy, assertive version of their communication; Instead, what they imagine in their minds seems confrontational (often because the models they had for conflict growing up were very bad). That’s one of the reasons I put so much effort into giving sample language here, because I think there’s real value in saying, No, it may just look like this. I have a lot of ethical issues with generative AI, but since it’s here, I’m very interested to see if using it this way over time can help people imagine better language. yourself at some point.
Anyway… is it fraudulent for Athena to use AI to modify your emails? I don’t know it is! I would call it so if she was rolling her eyes as she sent them and thinking, “These delicate flowers need to be handled so carefully.” But if she’s running her language through the AI and thinking, “Okay, this sounds good, I’ll send it to her,” I don’t think so. Is Cheat.
But I can also understand why you feel that way, especially when the rest of his communications remain the same old dismissive Athena.
Ultimately, your problem is that you have a manager who is angry, interrogative, micromanaging, and dismissive, not that he sometimes uses a device to improve his tone. Is there anything you can do about it? HeLike to talk wise with someone above you? If not, I’d try to embrace the moment where she’s at least letting Cloud help her – or, if that’s not possible, at least see the humor in the extreme contrast between her and her robot assistant.
