For a glimpse of today’s turmoil, look no further than the nearest office. “It’s an incipient war zone, ” says a McKinsey study. This is despite offices being mostly empty—both federal and corporate. The MAGA-era U. S. government feigns functionality even as its workforce is absent due to layoffs and a prolonged shutdown. Flights are still taking off with minimal air-traffic controllers. Meanwhile, millions in the private sector down the block resist corporate demands to return to the office. After enduring cutbacks and Covid, employees prefer Zoom calls at home in sweatpants over dealing with traffic or office politics. They also dread ominous forecasts about AI disruptions. Confession: I used to enjoy going to the office; apparently, others did too. The once-beloved TV show The Office was a hit in both the UK and the U. S. , with characters sharing gossip by the water cooler. Offices once brought busy people together for a shared purpose, and some even found relationships there. Yet today, employees are pushing back against giants like Amazon, J. P. Morgan, and NBCUniversal studios, even as these companies offer compromises to entice them back. I found myself in the minority on this issue, which troubled me, so I sought a way out: I asked ChatGPT to write an unbiased column in my “voice” to discover where Peter Bart truly stands or has stood.

This is what today’s research looks like. Within minutes, I was reading that offices are now relics—at least according to my digital avatar. “Creativity doesn’t need proximity, ” I supposedly wrote. My chatbot even cited a Harvard study: “Gen Z executives, schooled on Zoom and addicted to their phones and screens, struggle with office interaction. ” Additionally, the new “open plan landscape” of offices leaves workers feeling “both distracted and defenseless. ” Was all this accurate?Reflecting on my own scattered past, I actually enjoyed such “distractions. ” I relished the noisy exchanges as a young New York Times news staff member, and the fierce debates among film production teams at Paramount and later MGM. Indeed, I was sometimes pummeled as a newcomer and second-guessed as company president. Office life can be loud. So, if I were to occupy an office today, I think I would side not with AI Peter Bart’s “voice” but with Bartleby, the sharply informed columnist of The Economist. He wrote recently that he “welcomed the constant background hum of generative AI, even though meetings now routinely end with phrases like ‘I guess I still have a job. ’” Still, the AI lexicon troubles him: “People have no clue what they are talking about with words like ‘agentic’ or ‘non-determinism, ’” he notes. Bartleby, like most journalists, often works from home. What’s the bottom line?Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that despite companies pushing for office returns, average attendance “has barely budged. ” Managers are hesitant to enforce attendance too strictly. “There are more pressing things for companies to worry about right now, ” one CEO admitted, according to the Journal. Microsoft, for instance, now requires three office days a week starting next February, while NBCUniversal asks for four. Ironically, Amazon’s stricter rules have briefly caused desk shortages. One executive commented, “It’s still a cheap way to reduce head count, but you don’t get to choose who stays or leaves. ” What’s the solution?I asked my chatbot, which suggested, “Maybe it’s not about mandates but about making the office truly matter again—not with pizza parties but with a mission. ” This time, I agree with my chatbot, but I hope I don’t have to negotiate with an AI company for the right to misquote myself.