Kaiju

Apparently, I’m not the only one who needs babysitting. But I will say, more often than not, my manager is moral support. Seriously, watching so many writers, musicians, actors, and artists struggling against AI – and losing ground – is like witnessing a culture-killing kaiju rising out of the sea. A kaiju wears no collar, serves no master, and preserves only itself. And it won’t cause just a smidge of pesky beach erosion to those swanky waterfront estates while drowning low-lying communities. The AI kaiju’s insatiable appetite for not only more, but ALL, it wholly indiscriminate, fueled by theft, greed, envy, sloth, and about three other sins.

I get it, disasters are my bread and butter because I’m in the business of escapism, but just speaking for myself, sometimes typing while the world drowns, or conducting as the ship sinks, or fiddling while Rome burns seems just a tad bit oblivious. That kaiju isn’t only emerging from the metaphorical soup of AI assimilation, but from the actually rising sea. And when our heart’s dry up, writer’s are giving up, but they aren’t cleaning out their desk to go to work in a bank. They’re locking the door on their very soul. Cut and paste any other artist into the “writer” field.

Do I believe there will be a resurgence of our craft? Yes. Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum swings long, and slow, and deadly, but it swings toward George O. Smith’s prognostications of the inevitable need for “Certified Unique” from his 1940’s episodes of Venus Equilateral. For the record, everything I make is without AI. Sure I google stuff, but lately, that’s only about 50% useful as, wait for it, AI is now “helping.” I run manuscripts through AI editors, BEFORE I send them to human editors. Not instead.

Do we need dig up the “historical records” so Captain Kirk can tell us that the human value will persist if humanity persists? Human-created will not go away, or simply maintain its place. Listen, all you artists out there, AI is making “human-made” rarer and MORE PRECIOUS and that is because with billions of us, our fingerprints are still unique, and everything those fingers make, is still unique. The pendulum will swing back to find those, still standing, who didn’t sink to the level of easy, fast, cheap, and “good enough.” We will be able to actually compete with the mega-monster BECAUSE we are human.

Also, caught my manager watching the baby for me. He’s unique, too.