Chatbots, Greek gods, and empathy. 

Do you know her? Do you truly know anyone? That’s Eleos, the goddess of compassion. You can tell she’s judging you.

That’s right, you have not worshipped her for long while. In fact, if you work long hours, stress out and doomscroll, your capacity for empathy drops.  Why give a f*ck about people at work?  People suck. Robots don’t talk back. 

Turns out, being a decent human boosts productivity. In case you don’t trust Eleos, some nerds at Harvard said teams with higher levels of empathy are 25% more productive. If you’re a manager, that means your people deliver faster. If you’re not a manager, it means you get to log off early and doomscroll some more. Say you don’t care about being more productive.

More respectable nerds found that lack of empathy reduced both staff wellbeing and performance. Yep, ignoring your own and other people’s emotions is bad for you long term. Truly devastating news for the IT fam and men in general. Okay chat, what do we do now?

Brain drama made easy. 🧠

We’ve read through enough lame articles on empathy so you don’t have to. Bad news: humans are worse at empathy than they think. You mostly think about yourself while your coworker is an NPC most of the time – unless they are really horrible, really hot or you’re friends outside of work. Good news: empathy is a skill. So you can get better at it. You mostly need to learn to spot feelings (easy ish) and share feelings (harder).

Pretending that you’re listening isn’t enough anymore. It’s time to get vulnerable. Ugh.

We know what you’re thinking. Let me just put my brain in a jar and let Chat do the dirty work for me. Eleos has prepped a nice jar for you so it’s easy to make a sacrifice. Leave your squishy friend there and let’s go.

AI and tactical empathy at work. 💖

Okay, you’ve kept the brain. Rude. So AI can’t magically make you more empathetic but it can help you practice. You’re not gonna like it, but the first step is self-compassion. To connect with others you need to first practice being less of a d*ck to yourself. Let’s go.

Self-compassion with AI.

Being aware of your thoughts and feelings. Tell Chat, Gemini, Deepseek or your chatbot of choice that you’re practicing self-compassion, then name your feelings about a recent situation.You need to be specific about naming them, especially if those feelings are painful and complex. Then ask yourchatbot to help you see this from a non-judgemental point of view. Seeing your feelings spelled out and feeling less judgy about them really does wonders to some important parts of your brain, the nerds confirm.

Do this at the end of the day or after a difficult meeting at work and you’ll notice the difference. If you have troubles with self-compassion, there are AI solutions like Replika. It’s always there to listen, talk and judge you silently. If you’re using voice modes you can ask ask your chatbot for a guided self-compassion meditation. If you prefer humans, Headspace is a great tool for guided meditations and compassion development tools.

The next level is learning to talk about your cringey feelings and asking for help at work. See a shrink (human or AI) about that  – it’s some good stuff.

 Tactical empathy prompts. 

Now that you’re nicer to yourself, let’s think of the others. You can practice watching for subtle changes in your coworkers’ behavior to see what really grinds their gears to build up emotional awareness. But here we’re onto one big fat indicator. Withholding blame.

When others act like we wouldn’t, we immediately label them. Stupid, incompetent, slow, irrational, lacking taste, egotistic, can’t shut up, can’t ever speak up. You roll your eyes or message your friend privately, there we go again.

The biggest empathy gain lays here: do not act on it. 

Instead, when someone is ‘at it again’, describe the situation to your fave AI and ask why they might act that way. Mention you’re trying to develop empathy in your prompt.Read what the robot gives you and then ask what emotions they might be experiencing based on their behavior. If you want to graduate from Compassion University, try reaching out to said person and ask what’s on their mind lately work aside. 

Next time you’re dealing with someone difficult over text, ask your chatbot to rewrite your message not in a polite manner, but in a compassionate way. See what it does. Refine if needed.

A friendly reminder: avoid naming people, companies, and disclosing any sensitive info with your chatbot. You know, just in case.  

 Have you noticed the can? 

Eleos is holding one because we are serious about our offerings to her. Tuna Can is a company built on compassion for humans. We promise not to roll eyes when you struggle.