This past weekend (as I’m writing this, anyway) was just long enough for my exhausted mind to forget everything that was going on at work. Unfortunately for me, what was going on was investigating a bevy of bugs I’d found and all of them were waiting for me when I got in on my Monday morning. As was one of the German software developers I work with (the one I get along with better, thankfully). I then proceeded to spend seven hours on the phone with him, some of them testing and some of them just shooting the shit while we waited for the very slow test (that was supposed to be much faster) showed whether or not we’d managed to eliminate the bug by changing on of over a dozen variables. It was time-consuming and exhausting work, and honestly some of the most exacting testing I’ve done in a while since the project I’ve been working on for a while now is more of a “does it feel alright? Cool, next thing” type project than a “change dozens of tiny variables one at a time and review the results of a repeated action with each set of variables, all of which must be recorded for historical purposes and further investigation by my developer coworkers. It has left me drained even after getting a couple decent nights of sleep, moreso even than I felt the week prior when I was dead on my feet from not sleeping enough at all. Mostly because the busy afternoon wrapped up with me returning to my desk to find that a recently departed (for the day, not from this mortal coil) coworker had set up a meeting for us to learn about how other departments us AI testing tools.

Ultimately, that final straw is what broke me for this week. And, the next day, getting asked by my boss during our every-other-weekly one-on-one meeting if I knew anything about a quote he’d been sent that was worrying to people in charge of him that misrepresented his views on AI didn’t help matters. He took me at my word, that I knew nothing about that (and I genuinely don’t know anything about it and would push back against anyone asserting that because while my boss absolutely loves “AI” and all it can do for him, he has been quite clear that he sees it as an enhancement tool rather than a replacement for testers or workers in his department. I don’t agree with him about its utility, but I know he doesn’t see it as a way to replace people. I think he’s incredibly naive about how the tool is going to be used to justify removing people at other companies and taking for granted that nothing like it will happen here, but he has long since stopped even pretending to listen to my objections about the intelligence destroying pseudo-technology and I can now see what my out-spoken opposition has caused. I am the AI hater. When someone speaks out against his use and reliance on AI in his day-to-day, suspicion naturally falls on me. After all, it’s common knowledge that I’ve stopped trying to argue against the technology despite my continued disapproval of it since I’ve also not made it a secret that I think it’s pointless to “debate” with any of them about this topic. Debate requires an exchange of ideas and they having nothing new and refuse to listen, believe, or accept what I bring, so there’s little point in further exhausting myself just so they all have someone to talk at about their favorite little bullshit bot.

So two days in and I’m locked into have a pretty horrible week, since this crap is going to be hanging over the entire thing until we have that stupid meeting on Friday. Until then, I can’t exactly figure out what is going to be demanded of me and how nice I have to play with people using the plagiarism machine that destroys the environment. All I can do is wonder, try to focus on other work, and endless spiral about it as I wear myself out on just trying to have a normal week and instead get pulled into a dozen dumb problem, some exhaustive testing, and the “AI debate” I’m trying to avoid because it’s incredibly clear which of my coworkers are starting to use it more and more and I don’t know how to say “your communication skills are getting worse” without sounding like an asshole to all these Midwesterners who will reject any valid argument I have if they believe part of it included an insult. So instead I’m trying to spend as much time as I can on this bug I find and my other intermittent testing, hoping I can stay busy enough that no one tries to talk to me and I can’t think about the devaluation of my greatest and most-valued skills as all my coworkers turn to the slop machine for the tasks they think either aren’t important enough for their full attention or think that a machine can do better than then. Which isn’t working out great because I am absolutely exhausted and tired and worn down and all of this just drains me of any ability to feel alright or even just shake myself out of this funk.

I’d really hoped to leave this all behind over the weekend. To be able to rest and return refreshed, but each day drains me anew and I can’t help but wonder why I’m bothering to push back against anything. Why am I trying to have any kind of… I don’t know, conversation, I guess, about this stuff ever? It’s too late to have avoided being labeled the “AI Hater” on my team, that much is certain, but I could shut up about it, swallow the bitter bile that rises within me every time my coworkers talk about using it, and just not say anything. I’m already mostly doing that with friends who are willing to carve out exceptions for this destructive, theft-based technology that is meant to disempower workers and the lower classes, so why won’t I do that for my coworkers who I genuinely care about less than any of the aforementioned friends? Why am I willing to tell my coworkers what I think when I can’t bring myself to do anything other than quickly brush past my friends talking about its use in their lives? Maybe it’s because I’m less emotionally invested in what my coworkers think of me. Maybe it’s because, unlike the situations where my friends are using it, “AI” being adopted by my coworkers means I’m eventually going to be forced to interfact with it in some professional capacity that I can’t skirt. I don’t know. I’m too tired to figure it out. Way too tired.