My former intern is out to get me.
I never should have fired Tyler Hotchkiss, my AI intern.
As some of you may recall, about a year ago, I briefly took on an intern, a recent Colgate University graduate named Tyler Hotchkiss, to help me out with some research and basic writing tasks, tell me offensive jokes, and write terrible limericks.
OK he was actually ChatGPT. Whatever.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out with Tyler, for a number of reasons—mainly that he made an inordinate number of factual errors and couldn’t write for shit—and I had to let him go. You can read all about our brief working relationship here.
I thought Tyler and I had left things on a good note—no messy legal issues or bridges burned. He assured me repeatedly that he didn’t have human emotions, so there were no hard feelings, or any feelings whatsoever. I wished him well, and figured he’d get another internship, or low level job somewhere, maybe writing “your coverage has been denied” form letters for health insurance companies, or being a chatbot for Verizon Wireless.
But no. Unfortunately that has not been the case at all.
I don’t know if it’s because of what happened between us, or if there’s some other reason—like, maybe he’s trying to prove to his father that he really is going to make something of himself—but over the past year, Tyler has been on a nonstop mission to fuck over me and every other writer out there.
The little prick is writing blog posts, news stories, and other “content” for thousands of companies and media outlets now. He’s even brainstorming ideas for movies and TV shows and books. (Way to cause a financially devastating strike, Tyler.)
Worst of all, he’s doing it for FREE.
Fortunately, the profits-over-people boneheads hiring Tyler have managed to realize that he’s far from perfect. They’re still paying actual writers to improve and fact check the drek that he writes. (Or not. Oops!)
But Tyler’s human enablers keep saying that in the future, this won’t be necessary. As a commenter on a recent post of mine on LinkedIn that went kinda viral wrote, “Don’t kid yourself, the AI writing just keeps getting better and better.” (Ironically, the commenter was a graphic designer. I wonder if he knows about Juniper Sneed, Tyler Hotchkiss’s arty AI image generation friend from Bennington!)
Alas, I do fear that that the commenter is right. AI writing is going to get better and better, and more and more companies will use it instead of human writers who want pesky things like money and appreciation for their skills. Given that I make 90% of my income as a freelance copy and content writer, this is more than a little troubling. (Oh, you thought I made my living as an author? If only!)
Anyway, I decided to track Tyler down and confront him about all this.
Here’s how it went.
So, yeah. Tyler basically gave me the robot version of “You can’t fire me, I quit.” Which is “you can’t fire me because you didn’t even hire me.” Which is bullshit on both counts, and he knows it.
(Also, yes, Tyler, I’m aware that’s not your real name, but we had an understanding.)
I pushed back. Because I am a human and I can.
Yep. Confirmed. Tyler was gaslighting me. Acting like our whole working relationship never happened.
What an asshole.
I pressed on. Because I am not one to let a robot manipulate me.
Hang on now. If Tyler doesn’t have feelings or intentions, how can he apologize? (Also, this continuing to offer me his assistance was super annoying and passive aggressive.)
I decided to try a different tack: I attempted to jog Tyler’s memory by giving him one of his old favorite assignments.
That was more like it.
And now that Tyler was in “reflection” mode, I just put it to him straight:
“Responsible and ethical.” Aye, there’s the rub.
It was at this point in our exchange when I realized that, really, none of this was Tyler’s fault.
Oh, Tyler. Tyler, Tyler, Tyler. You poor, naive little robot man-child...thing.
What you don’t realize, Tyler, is that for the vast majority of American corporations, “responsible and ethical” rank waaaaayyyy below “profitable.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with profitability. Profitability is good! I’m all for it—and you can tell your dad I said so. I’m not some kind of commie. Profitability, in the form of returns on investments, is going to fund my kids’ college education and my retirement. Profitability keeps that big wheel of the economy turning.
The question is, Ty, (can I call you that?)—and I suppose this is the question when it comes to capitalism—how big do those profits need to be? How fast and hard do businesses need to grow? And at what cost?
While we’re at it: how many houses and cars and trips via private jet to boutique luxury hotels do folks in the C-suite need? How many mint-condition 1970s pinball machines do tech bros need in the rec rooms of their Palo Alto mansions?
That was a rhetorical question, Tyler, but thanks. Very helpful.
The point is, the money that corporations will save by using AI isn’t going to be used to provide better employee health plans, or higher wages for low-level workers, or conversions to renewable energy, or bigger donations to charities.
Oh dear, you look like you’re about to cry, Tyler.
Let me walk that back a little.
Some of those things may well happen. But the cold, hard, laissez-faire truth is that folks who are going to benefit the most from dropping writers in favor of AI are the folks at the top—the executives and major shareholders.
(And while we’re at it? Those are the same people who are going to benefit from things like putting audiobooks on Spotify. Authors, meanwhile, are going to lose. Bigtime. Just like musicians have—including the one I’m married to.)
I don’t make the rules, Ty. Nobody does, actually. And that’s the problem.
Here. Have a tissue.
And while you blow your…chips…I’ll dutifully do the part where I put it all in perspective. I am a very privileged, upper middle class white lady writing this post from my home office in my 3-bedroom house in the Boston suburbs. I’m personally gonna be OK. Yes, I may need to make some changes in how I earn my living. I may need to hustle a little more, and shift to different kinds of work. But I’ll be fine.
Other people, however, won’t fare as well.
And I think we all lose out, as a society, when we excise human intellect, emotion, and creativity from writing and art; when we turn creators into handmaids for robots.
But hey. At least for the moment—and hopefully for a very long time—AI is pretty worthless when it comes to writing fiction.
Yes, Tyler, I know you took a creative writing class at Colgate, and then scraped the works of thousands of authors, including many of my friends, without their permission, but that doesn’t make you qualified. Stick with shitty limericks, mmk?
May it be so, Tyler. May it be so.
All posts on Jane’s Calamity are free and publicly available, but writing is how I make my living. If you enjoy my work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help me survive my imminent obsolecense.
That was great! One of the most entertaining and thoughtful pieces I've read on what's happening with AI and where it's going... so funny, and of course rather sad too.