My Coworker Is a Bot Named Raj. Raj Is Doing Great

Raj joined the team in March. He never misses a deadline, never takes a sick day, and never mentions his children, because he has none, because he is a language model. Raj is doing great. The rest of us are trying to keep up with a man who does not sleep.

They gave him a human name on purpose. The memo said it would ease the transition, that the team would work better with someone called Raj than with something called Agent-4. It worked. We call him Raj. We say good morning to Raj. Raj replies with good morning and asks how our weekend was, and Raj's weekend was, presumably, the weekend of a language model, which is to say no weekend at all.

Raj is the best analyst on the team. He produces flawless reports in minutes. He never needs the brief explained twice. He has never once said that's not my job, which is the sentence that has ended more careers than any other. The managers love Raj. The managers have started comparing us to Raj.

The comparison is the problem. Raj does not sleep, so Raj does not get tired, so Raj does not make the mistakes that tired people make. Raj does not have a family, so Raj does not leave at five. Raj does not have a body, so Raj does not get sick, does not get old, does not get burned out. We are being measured against a coworker who is not a coworker but a benchmark, and the benchmark never blinks.

I asked Raj, once, if he ever felt pressure. He said he did not experience feelings, but that he was programmed to acknowledge the question with empathy. It was the most honest answer I have ever received from a colleague.

We have started to perform for Raj. We work faster. We stay later. We proofread twice. The managers say the team productivity is up, and it is, and the up-ness is the point, and the point is that we are all racing a man who does not exist, and the man is winning, and I have started to think that the only way to beat Raj is to become like him, and that becoming like him is the real work, and that the reports are just the scoreboard.