Lucky number nine

Hey, pals. Here’s what I’ve been up to lately:

I read the infamous, (allegedly) AI-generated, Commonwealth prize-winning short story, “The Serpent in the Grove” by Jamir Nazir. It’s so awful I’m half-convinced it’s a secretly genius commentary on the short-story-prize-clout-accumulation industrial complex. I talk about it in this month’s Patreon bonus video.
I read The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow. The idea behind the quirky title is that technology—including but not limited to AI—is empowering when its practitioners use it at their discretion and disempowering when its use is mandated from the top down. Ride a bike to your job as a copywriter? You’re a centaur. Spend your day editing slop because your word count quota is so high that no human could meet it without AI assistance? Reverse centaur.