Damian: Its official. Drake was right. I'm not capable of having proper social interaction and will forever remain a outsider. What purpose do I serve now?

Jon: Whoa, its not like you to have a existential crisis. What happened?

Damian: I tried to imply seduction techniques that Richard ensure me would led to a proper courtship upon Daniel Fenton and made a utter fool of myself.

Jon: Hey thats okay. Everyone, has a fail flirting story. I'm sure it wasnt as bad as you think it was.

Damian: He was explaining what color scheme he was going to use for his bird house he made and when he said he wanted to use Heritage colors, he asked for my opinion. Do you know what I said?

Jon: Oof something corny if Dick told you how to flirt.

Damian: No, I was thinking something corny. Instead my mouth thought it appropriate to say "To me, heritage colors means brown".

Jon: ....

Damian: ....

Jon: .....

Damian: You can laugh-

Jon: *WHEEZE*

Damian: This is terrible! *puts face in hands* He was holding the color palette. There was no brown on it. Just grays. GRAYS.

Jon: *Laughing* I'm sorry, what did he say?

Damian: Thats the worst part. He laughed, and patted my head, told me I was adorable.

Jon: Thats not too bad-

Damian muffled wail: He said I was really smart for someone my age, and that he always wanted a little brother like me. He then gave me stickers. HE THINKS IM TEN.

Jon: How old is he?

Damian: We're the same age, Jon, he's just unnaturally tall for a fifteen year old.

Jon: Well, you are unnaturally short for-

Damian: I will send you to your Kryptonian god

Jon: Jokes on you, I'm a atheist.

Damian: Im never getting married. I'll grow old, die a virgin, and be a burden to my father by living at his house until my expiration. Like Drake!

Tim: I literally had nothing to do with this conversation. I was just trying to have some cereal. Why you attacking me?

Damian sobbing: Move out, Drake, your boyfriend owns a boat house!

Tim: That's my boat house

Damian: Then why are a YOU STILL AT THE MANOR

Tim: I dont have groceries. By the way, I know Danny. He makes all of Bernard's wooden furniture. I can put in a good word for you-

Damian: Have I ever told you that your my favorite brother?

Tim: Don't. That made me skin crawl

Jon: Agree. It was unnatural.

ALT

Dust By Dorianne Laux Someone spoke to me last night, told me the truth. Just a few words, but I recognized it. I knew I should make myself get up, write it down, but it was late, and I was exhausted from working all day in the garden, moving rocks. Now, I remember only the flavor — not like food, sweet or sharp. More like a fine powder, like dust. And I wasn’t elated or frightened, but simply rapt, aware. That’s how it is sometimes — God comes to your window, all bright light and black wings, and you’re just too tired to open it.

Dust by Dorianne Laux

A short poem: The thing we couldn't do becomes the thing we can

By @ goodthings4blackgirls.

Why I Don't Like AI

Or, Use It Or Lose It

It's not just that Chat GPT essentially makes my job as a writer and editor obsolete -- if not now then definitely in the future -- although that's probably the reason why I was hesitant to jump into the deep when most people did. I wanted to observe it a bit longer from the outside, like I tend to do with most new technologies.

I see so many people who won't even write their own emails anymore, sit with a problem and come up with a solution, look up a simple fact on Wikipedia, or read their friends' long messages. And AI has just been around for just a few years. Scary.

It frightens me how fast people are willing to give up thinking and how many have surrendered their hard-earned skills in such a short time. I don't think people realize how fast you can lose a skill when you stop using it. (This is coming from my neurology angle. If you want to know more about this, the terms you need to research are "neuroplasticity" and the "use it or lose it" principle for neural circuits.)

It feels like the people who keep doing stuff without AI will be the only ones left with reasonably intact critical thinking skills, writing skills, and deep reading skills, and the rest of the world won't even realize what they have given away. And that's not even taking into account what's left of our attention span after nearly 20 years of social media.

Other reasons why I don't like AI:

• It is factually wrong so often, but with such confidence, I don't think people realize it. It promotes misinformation and if AI keeps learning from AI, the problem will only grow.
• Interacting with customer service bots almost never answers the questions I have.
• I don't like it if a friend mentions they used AI to reply to my text message when they were tired. What the actual fuck? I want to connect with my friend, not with Chat GPT. I'd rather be left unread for days than get an immediate but artificial reply.
• As you well know, AI capitalizes on the creative work of actual humans who worked hard to hone their skills.
• The spaces where I share my art are flooded with "okay enough" AI slop, making it even harder for me to find and connect with my audience.
• As a reader I agree with this tweet by Ian Boudreau: "Why should I bother reading something that nobody could be bothered to write?"
• It takes so much electricity and drinkable water to make AI run. That doesn't sit well with me, coming from a generation that's been told a million times to turn off the light when we leave the room or to turn off the tap while we're brushing our teeth. It feels like we're setting the planet on fire for short-term convenience.
• I actually like to read and write. I don't want bots to do it for me and I don't want to be forced to let them do so by the programs or apps I use.

But I'd like to stress how much it frightens me how fast people are getting dependent on AI for normal things they used to do without thinking twice only two years ago. If social media demolished our attention span by just showing us entertaining clips, what do you think a program that takes care of your problem-solving will do?