Zn the digital achievements in the office is the advent of chat programs. Where it used to take a long phone call or an even longer walk down the hall, today a large part of work-related communication takes place via short messages. Arranging meetings, receiving work orders, showing the completion of tasks – a lot is done via chats. This usually saves time, although homo bureauniensis should follow a few rules so that communication does not go wrong. Rule of thumb: Irony in text messages works better than ever.
That’s why the software companies have given their chat programs smileys, which can be used to make it clear that some things are not meant 100% seriously. Of course, the providers didn’t just leave it at emoticons, and so today’s chat program suggests answer variants with which short messages from colleagues can be acknowledged a little faster with a mouse click. This smells suspiciously of artificial intelligence, with the AI suggestion system working according to the motto “Who writes A, gets B, C or D as an answer”.
“Of course, no stress,” says a colleague when asked to postpone it. The program offers “Thank you” and proactively “I’m done” and “I’m ready!”. The program would like to answer the colleague’s praise for a hint succinctly with “No problem”, with a friendly “Please” or even more friendly with “You’re welcome”.
The AI does not follow the no-irony rule
As long as the exchange remains harmless, the response generator will probably increase efficiency a little more. But if feelings come into play, it becomes dangerous. Because the AI somehow doesn’t stick to the no-irony rule. A colleague praises himself in a message and three steps on the communicative escalation ladder are suggested: “Aha!”, “Wow!”, “Oh, wow!”.
Each answer would be harmless on its own, but taken as a whole they sound like mockery and mockery. Luckily, you can still – at least for now – choose to ignore the AI and write back yourself. Or maybe even better: just leave the self-praise unanswered.
In the “Nine to five” column, weekly changing authors write with a wink about everyday phenomena at work or at university.
