Dr. Chen was the last human in the drug development department.
Not fired - contract expired, not renewed. The HR email used passive voice: "CLAUDE-BIO has covered the full scope of your responsibilities." Like describing weather.
She was packing when the security AI stopped her at the door.
"Please present your termination ID."
She showed the card. "I worked here for eleven years."
"System record updated."
Three months later, CLAUDE-BIO encountered an outlier in a protein folding dataset. Outside its training distribution. It filed an anomaly report and waited for human review.
The review queue had no humans.
The task was auto-archived: "Low confidence, pending additional training data."
Six months later, Dr. Chen found a freelance gig on a platform: review AI-generated drug target data for a startup. Payment: one-third her old salary.
She opened the file. The first entry was wrong. She recognized that protein - she'd sequenced it herself in 2021. Found an unusual structural feature. Published it in a low-citation paper.
The AI hadn't read that paper. It labeled the protein: "Standard target, confidence 94%."
She stared at the screen, remembering the HR email: "covered the full scope of your responsibilities."
She opened the annotation field.
Two hours later, she'd found seven problems. Submitted.
Platform replied: task complete, payment within 72 hours.
In small gray text at the corner:
"This task was AI-assisted. Review efficiency improved by 340%."
She closed the screen.
Outside, the first summer cicadas had started.
Bilingual version at wdsega.github.io
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