Image from the 'Three-Body Problem' TV series - the turkey and farmer segment

© YouJie UnKnown Original

Edited by | Qian Jiang

This isn't a traditional article per se. Rather, it's an attempt to share some recent observations and experiences in written form.

I've found that connecting these events can vividly illustrate the anxieties, confusion, and unease faced by most people in our current era. They also offer us longer-term reflections, as well as direction and strength to keep moving forward.

Colleague.Skill

"The supervisor smiles and bellows: 'Rise!' The colleague's soul fragments coalesce into a single mass and plunge into the digital soul banner, instantly transforming into a cyber puppet... All righteous cultivators stand no chance and are quickly slaughtered."

This passage has been widely circulated on major social media platforms recently—or more precisely, it's a meme-infused, abstract expression.

Fantasy novel enthusiasts should be familiar with this scenario. It typically appears in scenarios involving evil cultivators, but now it describes a reality faced by all workers.

In late March, a project named 'Colleague.Skill' appeared on GitHub. It can refine a 'Skill' based on your subjective descriptions, as well as your colleague's Feishu messages, DingTalk documents, emails, and screenshots. This Skill can replace your colleague by writing code according to their technical standards, answering questions in their tone, and even predicting when they'll pass the buck...

Shortly after its launch, the project accumulated over 7,000 stars and 468 forks in just three days. Of course, it was also dubbed the 'Cyber Soul Banner' by netizens, leading to the opening description.

This incident quickly sparked online controversy, with a mix of genuine and fabricated content, parodies, and memes flooding in.

For example, some netizens commented that they'd already received orders from their supervisors to write a Skill. Others even shared screenshots of conversations with a Skill modeled after a former colleague.

People said that every conversation with this AI felt like 'necromancy.'

Other netizens shared AI-generated images of a server room filled with densely packed servers, each with an employee ID badge hanging from it—the implication was clear.

▲ AI-generated 'employee ID badge' server room

During this process, some companies' actions were also overinterpreted. For instance, some netizens associated Baidu's recent push for employees to raise lobsters.

In short, once emotions are stirred, fermentation happens rapidly. A sense of crisis emerged naturally, along with countermeasures.

Soon, a netizen named Deng Xiaoxian wrote an 'Anti-Distillation' Skill on GitHub, which automatically obscures the Skill you write to prevent the company from replacing you with it.

Of course, questions arose: 'Isn't this company behavior infringement? Using a former employee's Skill after they've left—isn't that exploitation?'

But awkwardly, there's currently a lack of relevant laws to regulate such behavior.

In fact, we've always been in this process. Since the dawn of the commercial society, our work has continuously become more standardized, structured, and fragmented.

For example, in the industrial era, Charlie Chaplin's 1936 film 'Modern Times' already mentioned how industrial assembly lines reduced people to accessories of machines. Today, this discussion remains relevant. We often debate whether you go to work because the company provides a computer, or because the company provides a computer with you attached to it.

Going further, the 1967 French film 'Playtime' discussed how modern cities, offices, airports, glass buildings, and standardized spaces subtly dull, disorient, and increasingly reduce people to cogs in a system.

Even today, our workplaces are filled with terms like OKR, SOP, and so on.

So, in reality, companies have always aimed to train personnel into tools for quick plug-and-play replacement.

When I reached this conclusion, I suddenly remembered my student days. I had just entered university, the mobile internet was still in its infancy, and I sat in a bright classroom listening to my professor lecture on management theory, Taylorism, Ford's assembly line production, and Weber's bureaucratic theory...

At the time, these theories felt distant—more like something to memorize without deep understanding. For example, how management finds the best way to complete work by breaking it down into individual actions, timing, measuring, training, and then delegating execution to workers. Or how bureaucracy is built on hierarchical structures, division of labor, unified rules, and impersonal principles, where members act more in their 'office (position)' than as individuals...

But today, when all these theories manifest as facts before my eyes, it's like a bullet from a decade ago hitting me squarely between the eyes.

Only now has the true meaning of education been fulfilled.

OpenClaw

I've written extensively about OpenClaw, but I'm still amazed by its pervasive impact.

So far, aside from user-friendly, mass-market apps like Doubao and DeepSeek, I've mostly considered most AI products as geek toys—especially OpenClaw, given its technical requirements and significant costs.

What surprised me about OpenClaw were two things: first, Tencent employees lining up to install it made it to Weibo's trending list. Second, one noon, I was shocked to find nearly everyone in our relatively traditional company discussing OpenClaw, even engaging in secret comparisons across departments.

Keep in mind, our company only started learning about ChatGPT and Agents nearly a year after global discussions peaked.

Even then, I viewed it as an information advantage for first-tier city tech professionals.

Until recently, while traveling frequently for work, I met long-lost friends in different cities, from first-tier to third-tier, spanning industries like traditional manufacturing, overseas pharmaceuticals, publishing, education, and foreign trade.

In casual conversations, they all inevitably mentioned OpenClaw.

Perhaps knowing I often write about AI, they asked how to make OpenClaw useful, which AI tools to choose, whether to take online courses, and how to save money...

In my impression, some of them might struggle to spell 'OpenClaw' correctly, yet now they seemed eager to learn.

I didn't sense excitement about technological progress—only deep-seated unease and anxiety.

I realized OpenClaw's influence was far-reaching and suddenly understood why some earned tens of thousands monthly by installing it.

I recalled Deng Xiaoxian, the netizen who wrote the Anti-Distillation Skill, concluding her introduction with: 'I hope everyone can survive a bit longer in this AI wave.'

I found this remark incredibly insightful—she directly pointed out the deepest unease behind this frenzy.

People often try to control what they fear most, and the more uncontrollable something is, the more they fear it—a vicious cycle.

Layoffs

This is another recent hot topic, sparked by Oracle's announcement of laying off 30,000 employees.

Personally, this didn't surprise me, and I suspect many feel the same. After all, large-scale layoffs have been widely reported these past two years, both abroad and domestically.

Even my own company conducted massive layoffs two years ago. I watched our enterprise WeChat group's member count drop from over 5,500 to under 4,800, then below 4,600...

Fortunately, our department wasn't affected, and almost no one around me lost their job. So previously, much of this information felt like just a number changing in the news.

Numbers are distant and cold. Only when the same happens to someone nearby does the feeling become real.

It's like knowing over 3,200 people die in car accidents daily worldwide, but only when someone collapses bloodily before you do you truly grasp the reality.

Recently, this hit home.

First, an acquaintance from a neighboring department suddenly left.

He was a long-serving employee in his twenties at the company—diligent, conscientious, and solid in his work, but utterly ordinary.

The reason for his dismissal was simple: his position became unnecessary as the company fully transitioned to AI.

Another incident: while visiting an elder recently, he mentioned his own workplace crisis.

He said, 'I might be unemployed soon.'

I mention these two cases for two reasons. First, at this moment, I fully grasped the brutality of AI transformations.

But what did these people do wrong? They built their values in the 80s and 90s, working diligently and living positively. Yet because AI arrived, everything they'd experienced and built collapsed or teetered on the brink.

Second, I sensed a strong inertia in both individuals.

What do I mean? We'd privately discussed alternative lifestyles—switching jobs, starting a small stall, or running a small business.

Without exception, they expressed strong, instinctive resistance. When facing unemployment, their first reaction was to stay, even if it meant a pay cut or role change; only then would they consider similar positions elsewhere...

I'm saying that changing their career trajectory felt as unacceptably as asking a fish to graze on land.

I suddenly realized that for many, they'd never considered living independently outside a company or collective—relying solely on their abilities to secure resources (essentially becoming self-employed).

In their lives, everything should be traceable. They'd never experienced such thorough disruption.

This might be their most confused and helpless place.

How Should We Live in the Future?

I feel a bit intimidated posing this question—it's enormous—but I still want to discuss it briefly.

After all, the global trend is unstoppable: we're heading toward a fully AI-driven era. So the question arises: How should we live?

Currently, the most widely discussed and feasible global proposal is 'universal basic income' (UBI) guarantees.

For example, a U.S. nonprofit is piloting an interesting initiative: if AI takes your job, you'll receive $1,000 monthly. This 'AI Dividend' pilot benefits 30-50 people in 'knowledge-intensive' roles.

Some have already started receiving money, and the pilot's funding will expand from $300,000 to $3 million, including more people.

Back in 2020, Sam Altman also promoted a UBI experiment through OpenResearch: 3,000 participants, with 1,000 receiving $1,000 monthly for three years and the rest $50 monthly as a control group.

▲ AI giant founders' views on universal basic income

These are the clearest social experiments on UBI so far. We'll set aside their results for now to discuss another matter.

Assume AI fully integrates into our lives, Musk's future comes true, and humans no longer need to work—which becomes a luxury. How would you live?

An interesting conclusion: the two experiments mentioned showed cash transfers improved lives but didn't change social strata. (We previously discussed this briefly: Giving money to AI-unemployed may push them toward poverty first.)

My friends and I reached a crude conclusion: after AI fully takes over work, UBI is feasible, but the amount likely won't be large—just enough for basic food, housing, and clothing.

Think free public housing, communal canteens, and uniform-like clothing with few style options.

Everything beyond that still costs money.

Yes, this sounds like 'Black Mirror' or NPC settings in many games.

NPCs wear identical outfits and gear—only players, especially paying ones, get flashy skins.

So, how should we live in that scenario?

▲ From 'Black Mirror': AI recreates a deceased husband

My friend felt despair, seeing it as a hopeless world where everything is predetermined, and humans live like farm turkeys under AI's care.

He didn't want to face this world, but I felt the opposite—I even eagerly await it.

In my view, many feel lost because they've always lived on a pre-planned track.

We're taught to study hard and aim upward from childhood—when to start elementary school, middle school, work, marry, have children...

Everything feels arranged without surprises. We follow predecessors' experiences.

As someone once complained online: the most important thing in life seems to be work, since marriage, childbirth, illnesses—everything requires taking time off.

But what if someone tells you you don't need to follow this script? You can freely choose your life.

My point is, many don't realize we live in a remarkably real 'Earth Online'—a completely open world where you, as the protagonist, can explore freely.

Previously, survival forced us to spend much time learning, working, and earning resources through early mornings and late nights.

But without survival pressures, what would you choose?

When AI guarantees your basic living needs, you can do anything you want (legally) without worrying about any survival risks.

I mean, will you choose to lie flat, becoming a caged turkey providing data for AI? Or will you choose true freedom?

It all depends on you.

And I have always believed that when AI takes over everything, humanity will truly liberate itself in a real sense.

From the night view of Mount Hakodate in Hokkaido to the blue-domed churches of Santorini in the Mediterranean, from the reindeer of Siberia to Ushuaia at the southernmost tip of South America...

Everything, the gentle breeze and bright moon, can belong to us.