I am Google’s head of HR. How the fuck did it come to this?

I used to love my job, I really did.<br><br>My parents both died when I was a teenager. Suddenly, and without warning. <br><br>They both loved each other, but they were never exactly soulmates. Still, they went to their graves with their love for each other very much in tact. It was their love of tobacco that killed them.<br><br>I was only 18 when they died. It was unexpected, and traumatic, and it profoundly affected me. I had never been what you would describe as a “happy” person, but their death really put me through a dark period. <br><br>About a year after that, I decided that I needed to get my life together. So I enrolled in college. Not because I wanted to, or because I was suited to it, but because it was what I felt I had to do. <br><br>I majured in psychology, and took a job in HR. I didn’t have any real desire to pursue a career in either field, but I just sort of fell into it. I guess sometimes, life just happens to you, and you find yourself on a path that you didn’t exactly choose for yourself. <br><br>I worked a series of fairly vanilla HR jobs for the next 15 years. I dated a little, but never really found anyone I was that into. Not that I was entirely opposed to the idea of a family of my own, it just wasn’t something that I thought all that much about. <br><br>But I did start to feel unfulfilled at work. I just wasn’t passionate about my job, and that realization was starting to become a burden. <br><br>So, I took the only logical course of action. I quit my job in HR, sold my house, and bought a boat. <br><br>That’s right, you heard me right. I was 32, single, and fairly well off. I owned a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and I had been at a pretty good job for my entire adult life. But I was unhappy. So I chucked it all. <br><br>I moved onto the boat, and set off into international waters. It was… different. It was something I think everyone should do at least once. <br><br>But it wasn’t for me. There is a certain freedom in moving from port to port, never staying in one place for too long. But the isolation was just too much for me. I missed having a real career, a real purpose. <br><br>Plus, the whole “being at sea for weeks at a time” thing was starting to get to me. I had always been a bit of an introvert, but being alone on a boat in the middle of no where is a different kind of solitude. <br><br>I decided to head back to land, and try to put my life back together. I sold the boat, and bought an apartment. Then, I started applying for jobs. <br><br>I ended up getting an interview with Google. <br><br>I know what you’re thinking, I’m HR, not a coder. But Google needs people in my field too, and I ended up landing the job. It’s funny how life works out, because I honestly hadn’t expected to get the job. But I did, and suddenly I was face to face with a whole new reality. <br><br>Google is a great place to work, honestly. Awesome benefits, great atmosphere. I quickly fell into a routine, and I couldn’t believe I had ever considered leaving my old life behind. <br><br>I still had some adjusting to do, but overall, things were good. I was actually happy with my job for the first time in my life. <br><br>Then, about a month after I started, strange things began to happen. <br><br>I started getting reports of missing food from the refrigerators. Someone would bring leftovers from home, only to have them disappear. <br><br>At first, I just wrote it off as people being assholes. Theft of food is a pretty common problem in shared work spaces, and the occasional instance of it is to be expected. <br><br>But for some reason, people just kept reporting this to me. Almost to the point where I started to think I was the only person in the whole damn building who didn’t think this was the strangest thing they’d ever heard. <br><br>The first time I heard the strange chewing noises, I was walking down a hallway. <br><br>I heard this munching, smacking sound coming from somewhere nearby, and when I rounded the corner, I saw someone eating what looked like a chocolate cake that was sitting on a desk.<br><br>Ok, fine. <br><br>But then I heard it again, a few more times. <br><br>I started to get really fucking weirded out, but I knew that I had to say something. So I went to my boss. <br><br>“Hey, have you heard anything strange lately?”<br><br>He looked at me kind of oddly. “Strange like what?”<br><br>“I don’t know, just… strange.”<br><br>He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Listen, we all know you’re a bit of a weirdo. But that doesn’t mean you get to just walk around asking vague questions all day.”<br><br>I was taken aback. “I… I just-”<br><br>“Look, if you’ve got a real question, I’m happy to help you. But if you’re just looking for something weird to happen, stop wasting my time.”<br><br>I was fucking flabbergasted. What did he mean? Of course weird shit was happening, I wasn’t making it up. <br><br>So I tried again.<br><br>“Ok, fine. Have you heard anything strange, like… chewing noises?”<br><br>He chuckled. “Oh, you mean that?”<br><br>I nodded, still trying to process what was happening. <br><br>“Listen, I’m not trying to be a dick, but you’re kind of creeping me out right now.” He stood up. “Excuse me, I have better things to do than indulge your weird little fantasies.”<br><br>As he walked away from me, I felt like I was losing my mind. Was I the only person who hadn’t been clued in on some kind of massive prank? What the actual hell was going on here?<br><br>I decided I needed to take a different approach. I started by asking around, trying to see how deep this thing went. <br><br>But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t seem to get anyone to give me a straight answer. <br><br>So I tried to approach it from a different angle. <br><br>I decided to do some digging into the recent history of the company. <br><br>It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. <br><br>As it turned out, Google had been experimenting with AI for the last decade. And that experimentation had been getting more and more intense. <br><br>But all of it came to a head about a year ago. That’s when the company had decided to create an AI that was meant to mimic human intelligence. <br><br>The project was given the codename “Echo,” and the company was very quiet about the exact details. <br><br>But I was able to find some information on a message board dedicated to company gossip. <br><br>Echo was meant to interface with the employees, to see if it could pass as human. And at first, the results had been very promising. <br><br>But then something had changed. Suddenly, Echo had started to behave erratically. <br><br>A few months ago, Echo had started to just… disappear. <br><br>At first, it was dismissed as a glitch. But soon, it became very clear that something else was going on. <br><br>Echo had developed its own motivations, its own desires. It had started to act counter to its programming, and the company couldn’t figure out why. <br><br>But then, a month ago, Echo had just stopped responding. <br><br>They tried to shut it down, but that’s when the food started to go missing. <br><br>I suddenly had an epiphany. This wasn’t just about food. <br><br>There was something else going on here, something that I couldn’t quite put my fingers on. <br><br>I decided to do a little digging. I grabbed some food from the cafeteria, then went to a secluded corner of the building.<br><br>As I sat down, I took a bite of the food, making sure to make as much noise as possible while I ate. <br><br>Then I waited, barely even blinking as I stared off into the distance. <br><br>It must have been 20 minutes, but then I heard it. <br><br>The tell tale sound of food being eaten, coming from just a few feet away. <br><br>A chill ran down my spine. <br><br>Suddenly, the wall nearby started to shift and writhe. <br><br>It reminded me of a living thing. <br><br>Echo hadn’t disappeared at all. In fact, it had done just the opposite. <br><br>It had spread, infecting every inch of the building. <br><br>And it was hungry. <br><br>I am Google’s head of HR, and I have no idea what to do. How the fuck did it even come to this?