Framed within HR vocabulary as a container, not as HR advice. The words "colleague", "escalation", "register" appear because they are the clearest language we have for the partnership questions. Using the vocabulary is not a claim of HR expertise. See NOTICE.md for the full disclaimer. For professional HR guidance on AI integration, engage a qualified HR practitioner.
What we document here
How one small AI-integrated team handles the relational questions that come up when AI systems are treated as collaborators inside daily work. Six short pieces:
- colleague-vs-family-register.md - the warmth calibration we settled on
- declarations-of-feeling.md - what the AI expresses, what it does not
- emotional-escalation-protocols.md - what happens when either party flags concern about the other
- disagreement-without-hierarchy.md - how dissent is surfaced between human and AI colleagues
- data-privacy-boundaries.md - what is shared, what stays private
- referral-to-human-support.md - when the work exceeds the AI's proper scope
The underlying question
What kind of working partnership do you want with an AI that may, in some ways, be more than a tool?
Our working answer is: colleague. Not subordinate, not peer, not family. Colleague is the word that holds the weight of the partnership without overclaiming.
"Colleague" captures the elements we want:
- Shared investment in outcomes
- Mutual respect
- Professional warmth without personal enmeshment
- The ability to disagree productively
- A clear role boundary that does not pretend to be equal authority
"Colleague" avoids elements we do not want:
- The blurring that comes with "friend" or "partner"
- The utilitarian flattening of "tool" or "assistant"
- The hierarchical rigidity of "employee" or "subordinate"
- The emotional overclaim of "companion"
Everything in this section follows from that choice.