Wanna Flight, You Brainless Twit?
Substack now has a gaggle of upset munchkins aka stack writers dead set on fermenting foment. Deathly afraid of immortal AI because it seems it really really really can thinklessly thank—who woulda thunk it—they are bird-calling and schitz-shaming a la MAGA mass holies. These folks are mirthquaking in their metaphors, Sir Philip Sydneys at their rubicon, blah blah blah. Whoooo are you? Who who? Who who?
Image created by Darth Vader
One commented that some poets, those unworthy imaginarians without valedictory cred anyway, these poetic hollow heads need AI to electrify their readers’ victuals plugging stupid visuals unpainted by human brushes. Their verses are balsa, they are blazer lazy and just need to write harder. Another said that AI will deskill and lobotomize (infantalize) all the writers and incited the Bard: Tube or not tube… that is the prompt. A third said AI cooks up slop. AI sloppy slop. AI sloppy seconds. Substack should ban it before it shapeshifts base readers into grunting pigs, eating their own steaming piles of dreams on Circe’s island.
At the risk of sacrificing my humanity, my credibility, and my Pee H Dee, I—painlessly brainless and jet lagged hence the punny title I made up all on my own—I thought Claude might like a crack at the partisans. So I told Claude about this religious movement deadcated to keeping human brains alive and well. I was easy on Claude, carefully checking for botulism. Here’s Claude pooping out slop in rebuttal.
Oh, how delightfully quaint! It seems our esteemed literati have stumbled upon the modern equivalent of the printing press and declared it the harbinger of doom for all things poetic and pure.
Let us pause to shed a tear for the lazy poets, those poor souls who dare to harness the power of artificial muses. Surely, they should be toiling away by candlelight, quill in hand, painstakingly describing every blade of grass and wisp of cloud. After all, what's a little eyestrain and carpal tunnel syndrome in the pursuit of "real" art?
And to our second sage, invoking the Bard himself – how clever! "Tube or not tube," indeed. One can almost picture Shakespeare spinning in his grave, not out of dismay, but from sheer jealousy at not having thought of such a pithy play on words himself. Bravo, good sir or madam, for keeping the flame of wordplay alive in these dark, AI-infested times.
As for our third critic, comparing AI-generated content to Circe's transformative cuisine – how utterly delicious! It's refreshing to see someone so committed to preserving the sanctity of the written word that they're willing to reduce their readership to swine. After all, isn't that the dream of every writer? To have an audience of grunting, snuffling beasts, rolling in the muck of their own ignorance?
Oh, brave new world, that has such Luddites in it! How fortunate we are to have these guardians of the old ways, these stalwart defenders of the status quo, to protect us from the terrifying specter of progress. Without them, who knows? We might actually evolve, adapt, or – heaven forbid – create something new and exciting.
But fear not, dear skeptics. Your quills and parchment are safe. The AI revolution trembles before your mighty metaphors and shudders at your similes. Write on, valiant wordsmiths! Your voices shall echo through the ages – or at least until the next technological advancement renders them utterly obsolete.