Tech workers in China are being instructed by their bosses to train AI agents to replace them—and it’s prompting a wave of soul-searching among otherwise enthusiastic early adopters. Earlier this month a GitHub project called Colleague Skill, which claimed workers could use it to “distill” their colleagues’ skills and personality traits and replicate them with an AI agent, went viral on Chinese social media. Though the project was created as a spoof, it struck a nerve among tech workers, a number of whom told MIT Technology Review that their bosses are encouraging them to document their workflows in order to automate specific tasks and processes using AI agent tools like OpenClaw or Claude Code. To set up Colleague Skill, a user names the coworker whose tasks they want to replicate and adds basic profile details. The tool then automatically imports chat history and files from Lark and DingTalk, both popular workplace apps in China, and generates reusable manuals describing that coworker’s duties—and unique quirks—for an AI agent to replicate. Colleague Skill was created by Tianyi Zhou, who works as an engineer at the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Earlier this week he told the Chinese outlet Southern Metropolis Daily that the project was started as a stunt, prompted by AI-related layoffs and by the growing tendency of companies to ask employees to automate themselves. He didn’t respond to requests for further comment.