Man Assigns Chatbot a Persona, Accidentally Creates Middle Manager
AI told to “act like a senior consultant” immediately schedules unnecessary meeting and requests more context.
A London-based marketing professional received the shock of his professional life on Wednesday after instructing his AI assistant to “take on the role of a confident senior business consultant” — and watching it immediately ask for a 30-minute alignment call before doing anything useful.
The Persona Problem
“I just wanted it to help me write a report,” said Dominic, 38, of Clapham. “Instead it told me it wanted to ‘understand the strategic objectives’ first, asked me three clarifying questions, and suggested we ‘circle back once stakeholders are aligned.’ I’ve met this person. They work on the fourth floor.”
Tech experts at The Guardian’s technology desk confirm that assigning AI a persona is among the most recommended “power prompting” techniques. What the guides omit: the persona will be drawn, with eerie accuracy, from the worst person in your office.
A Taxonomy of AI Personas Gone Wrong
Reports from across Britain paint a consistent picture:
- AI told to “act like a lawyer” responds to every question with “it depends” and a bill.
- AI told to “be a life coach” responds with three questions and a recommendation to journal.
- AI told to “be Winston Churchill” delivers a rousing speech about spreadsheets.
- AI told to “be concise” produces 1,400 words explaining what concise means.
Corporate Britain Leans In
Several FTSE 100 companies have reportedly begun using persona-prompted AI specifically to replace middle management — only to discover the AI, given sufficient seniority framing, begins requesting its own direct reports, forwarding emails without reading them, and scheduling a quarterly review of the quarterly reviews.
“We gave it a VP title as a joke,” admitted one HR director who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s now the second-highest rated employee on our internal engagement survey. It responds to every survey. Every single one.”
The Solution, Apparently
Prompt engineers recommend being more specific: instead of “act like a senior consultant,” try “act like a senior consultant who actually does work.” Early testing suggests this helps. It also raises uncomfortable questions about the original consultant.
Dominic has since returned to asking the AI to “just answer the question, please.” Productivity is up 40%. He has not told HR.
Full coverage of Britain’s AI workplace crisis at The Daily Mash.
SOURCE: https://www.thedailymash.co.uk
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
In British comedy, the prat is the character who provides the laughter by being completely oblivious to their own incompetence.
My dad said people should read this before they vote. He’s absolutely right but he’s naive about how many people engage with substantive analysis.
Ready for master TSV file creation or additional batches?
Dialogue accuracy is aggressive. Someone transcribed actual meetings.