January 16, 2026
Bots get grace, humans get heat
We're more patient with AI than one another
We baby the bots and snap at coworkers — readers sound off
TLDR: A design leader claims we treat AI like a system to iterate on but judge humans for messy communication. Comments split between “AI has no ego, so patience is easy” and “this ignores human social wiring,” with some calling the piece vibe-y, others urging we bring AI-style kindness to coworkers.
An essay says we give AI endless do-overs—rewrite prompts, add context, iterate—with no judgment, but we get prickly with people. The author even reaches for self-help classic The Four Agreements as a workplace playbook: be clear, don’t take things personally, don’t assume. The internet promptly did what it does best: argue.
One camp nods along. CharlieDigital says AI doesn’t have ego, so the “patience” is really us giving ourselves grace—a mirror, not a machine. Another camp rolls its eyes. Lovich insists the premise ignores human reality: bots aren’t in our social pecking order, while our brains are hardwired to read status and rules. Then the spicy take arrives: Kwpolska slams the piece as “meaningless vibes” from someone selling AI—and drops the classic “[citation needed]” meme for extra sting.
Humor sneaks in too. Funnyenough deadpans that they’re more patient with kids and dogs, and a pragmatic voice notes we’ll spend ten minutes polishing a prompt but get angry repeating something to a coworker. The comment section splits: bring AI-style patience to people vs stop pretending AI ethics are therapy. The real headline isn’t the essay—it’s the crowd asking whether we need better prompts for humans or fewer vibes from thought leaders.
Key Points
- •The article contrasts iterative patience with AI against less forgiving human interactions in the workplace.
- •It applies principles from Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements to modern work: clear language, not taking things personally, and avoiding assumptions.
- •Unclear communication in leadership is linked to stalled projects, lower culture scores, higher attrition, and burnout.
- •Workplace resistance or skepticism (engineering, executives, users) are framed as signals of context or misalignment, not personal attacks.
- •Assumptions about intent, competence, and alignment create friction and erode trust; clarifying questions and iteration help avoid these failures.