Internet users have found humor in the idea behind the device, mocking their co-workers for automating before themselves. However, Colleague Skill’s virality has sparked a lot of debate about the dignity and individuality of workers in the age of AI.
After seeing CollegSkill on social media, Amber Li, 27, a tech worker in Shanghai, used it as a personal experiment to retool a former coworker. Within minutes, the tool created a file detailing how the man did his job. “It’s amazingly good,” says Lee. “It also captures the small qualities of the person, like how they react and their punctuation habits.” With this skill, Lee can use an AI agent as a new “collaborator” to help debug her code and provide instant feedback. Lee says it felt unusual and uncomfortable.
Nevertheless, replacing co-workers with agents may become the norm. As OpenClaw has become a national obsession, bosses in China are forcing tech workers to experiment with agents.
While AI agents can take control of your computer, read and summarize the news, respond to emails, and book restaurant reservations for you, tech workers on the ground say their usefulness has so far proven limited in business contexts. Asking employees to create manuals to describe their day-to-day jobs, as Colleague does, is one way to help fill this gap.
Hancheng Cao, an assistant professor at Emory University who studies AI and work, believes that companies have good reasons to push employees to create such work blueprints, beyond simply following a trend. “Firms gain not only internal experience with the tools, but also rich data about employee knowledge, workflow, and decision-making patterns. This helps companies see which parts of the work can be standardized or codified into the system, and which still depend on human judgment,” he says.
For employees, though, creating agents or creating blueprints for them can feel awkward and alien. A software engineer, who spoke to MIT Technology Review Anonymous, out of concern for his job security, trained an AI (not Collegial) on his workflow and found that the process felt streamlined—as if his work had been flattened into modules in a way that made them easier to replace. On social media, activists have turned to grumpiness to express similar sentiments. In a comment on Rednote, one user wrote that “a cold farewell can be turned into a warm token,” quipping that if they use Colleague Skills to engage their coworkers in the first place, they themselves might live a little longer.