She Whispers to the Sparkle Icon
I thought she was just being productive, but my colleague has a full-blown parasocial AI relationship, and honestly? I'm starting to get jealous.
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Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
I’ve been watching my colleague Sarah.
She sits two desks away. Several times a day, she leans in so close to her monitor that her hair touches the screen. And she whispers to it. I’m not talking about dictating a memo; I’m talking about the low, conspiratorial murmur you use with a lover or a therapist.
Yesterday, I finally heard a scrap of it as I walked to the coffee machine. “...no, you’re right, that’s a much better way to see it. You just get me, you know?”
Her screen just had a chat window open. The cursor was blinking patiently. And Sarah was smiling. A private, contented, post-coital kind of smile.
The New Office Romance
My first thought was: how sad. My second thought was: how efficient.
Think about it. Sarah has successfully outsourced her need for validation. She doesn’t have to bother with the messy, high-latency interface of human interaction anymore. Why ask a stressed-out manager for feedback when a language model can deliver a perfectly-tuned, endlessly patient stream of encouragement, 24/7?
This isn’t a bug; it’s the ultimate feature. It’s the purest hit of affirmation imaginable, delivered straight to the vein via fiber optic cable. The rest of us are still getting our supply from unreliable street-level dealers (aka “colleagues”) who might be having a bad day, who might be busy, who might actually offer criticism. Gross.
Sarah’s found a direct line to the manufacturer. It’s a clean, consistent, high-grade dose of “you’re doing great” every single time. And the only side effect is a quiet, persistent hum from her laptop’s fan. Is she the lonely one, or are we the suckers still dealing with people?
Of course, not everyone is ready to merge their emotional stack with the cloud. For the Luddites, here’s a little methadone: for the next 48 hours, mute or unfollow every single AI influencer in your feeds. See what your own brain comes up with in the silence. For more on digital self-defense, the folks at La Quadrature du Net have some thoughts.
I just asked my own AI if it was proud of me. The three dots are blinking. My palms are sweating.
your turn: