AI Job Fears in China Fuel 'Colleague Skill' Project's Viral Spread
- tech360.tv
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
An open-source artificial intelligence project called Colleague Skill has gone viral in China. It gained traction among young workers concerned about job insecurity as AI advances rapidly.
The project aims to distil human capabilities into reusable AI "skills" that are available online for free. This includes supposed skills from luminaries such as Steve Jobs, spiritual figures like Gautama Buddha, and ordinary office workers.
Zhou Tianyi, a 24-year-old engineer from the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, developed Colleague Skill as a whim in under four hours. He told The Paper, a local media outlet, about the project.
The initial aim was to convert work communications, documents, and experience into reusable skills. This would save human workers from repetitive tasks.
Zhou wrote on Microsoft-backed GitHub, the world’s largest source-code hosting site, that the tool was intended for situations where a colleague quits, leaving behind unmaintained documents. The programme could help turn "cold goodbyes into warm skills ... and cyber-immortality."
Colleague Skill is available in multiple languages, including Spanish, German, Japanese, Russian, and Portuguese. The concept of a portable "skill" originated from US AI start-up Anthropic.
Anthropic uses the term to define a set of reusable capabilities that enable its chatbot Claude to manage specific workflows in a structured, repeatable manner. The project gained notice during a period of a weak job market in China.
Young workers are feeling squeezed, facing increasing concerns that rapid advancements in AI threaten their job security. A viral social media post depicted an empty chair and a note reading, "My desk has been emptied and my skills have been uploaded."
Despite its popularity, Zhou cautioned, according to The Paper’s report, that the ability to extract human expertise is limited. He added, according to The Paper’s report, that AI skills lag behind the capabilities of real people.
AI skills may handle routine and repetitive work, such as answering frequently asked questions or summarising documents. However, they cannot match a human's judgment, creativity, and adaptability.
You Yunting, a Shanghai-based lawyer specialising in intellectual property, also raised concerns about potential personal data and privacy issues. Some companies have reportedly asked employees to provide their skills before departing.
While companies can legitimately claim ownership over an employee’s work-related intellectual output, You noted a fine line. You noted that this fine line exists between such output and non-work chat records or personal emails stored on company computers.
Inventive Chinese users quickly expanded Colleague Skill beyond its initial concept of harvesting skills from colleagues. Popular derivative projects on GitHub soon offered skills representing former lovers.
Users who uploaded Steve Jobs' digital persona claimed to have extracted the Apple founder’s product judgment and storytelling expertise. They suggested downloaders could discover real product opportunities through Jobs' understanding of human needs and technology acumen.
A persona for Buddha claimed to condense the classical Pali Canon, a sacred Buddhist scripture. It offered perspectives on life’s choices, obsessions, pains, and relationships.
The creators of the Buddha persona clarified that it was "AI mimicking Buddha’s thinking" and "should not replace professional advice."
Colleague Skill, an open-source AI project, has gone viral in China among young workers concerned about job security.
The project aims to harvest human capabilities into reusable AI "skills," making them available for free.
Developer Zhou Tianyi cautioned, according to The Paper’s report, that AI skills are limited and cannot match human judgment, creativity, or adaptability.
Source: SCMP
