The Department of Balderdash, Flummery & Hokum
Veritas Optional Since Whenever
So, You Want to be an AI Slopper
✱ Support the writer
Tip the author $2+$10+ earns the story's house trading card, $20+ the limited edition. We email you a claim code.
50% of tips go straight to the author. The rest covers processing fees and keeps Foofaraw running. Every dollar accounted for.
You want glory and riches and fame and book signings and an HBO adaptation and Hollywood parties and piles of cocaine and then groupies and threesomes and orgies and more, so much more! Maybe a couple of statues and the Nobel prize and all of the trophies and medals and the bestseller status and a book tour and red carpets and people chanting your name at the top of their lungs and glory—oh, how you yearn for that glory.
There’s only one problem: you’re expected to sit down and write and rewrite and then edit and chisel and, like, try to put in actual effort—who has the time? Nerd shit. There must be a shortcut.
And sure, maybe you even got one of those books about writing by Le Guin, King, or Bradbury, but it was so dense, had no pictures, and made your head hurt, so you threw it away. Stupid books.
Your next step, of course, is to get your big manuscript—nay, your great magnum opus, your gift to humanity!—done the fast way, with AI. And yeah, sure, some people despise it, but that’s because they’re haters and losers and Luddites. (You’re not really sure what that last word means, but it sounds so retro and cool and you heard it on your favorite podcast.)
So you fire up a chatbot and feed it your Great Big Idea or, you know what, why even bother, just tell it to make something up for you. Ideas, pfft, who even has them these days, am I right? Nah, let the robot take care of it. There! It’s a huge outline with characters, concepts, and all that good stuff, but again, with no pictures. Your eyes start to glaze over and you can just barely make out the bit where the bot praises your creativity. After a quick pat on the back, you acknowledge that part with a nod and a smile, something you tell yourself you’re going to practice in front of a mirror for all of your future interviews.
You give the bot the go-ahead, commanding it to turn that concept into a novel or perhaps a trilogy. It says it’s gonna need more tokens, so you punch in your mom’s credit card number, just like you always do. While it compiles your brilliant masterpiece, you take a break and smoke for a while and chug an extra-large energy drink.
It’s goddamn tiring, being an artist.
Once the novel is done, you don’t even bother to read it. You’re a writer, after all! Reading is for all those idiots who’ll have no choice but to worship you as their new god. A few more clicks and there, the cover’s ready. The hands don’t look quite right, but fuck it, doesn’t matter. Another purchase with your mom’s credit card and boom, your book has a sweet trailer! You post it online, awaiting the glory that is rightfully owed at fucking last.
And while you’re at it, time to message agents: you get another bot to send a couple hundred emails, telling them just how lucky they would be to have the sliver of a chance to represent you. Submission guidelines? Pfft, nah, that’s for weaklings. You’re better than all that: establish dominance!
You give them all an hour to respond. Meanwhile, you go and generate some stories and throw them at all the magazines: let’s make it rain! Book publishing will take a little while: at least two weeks before the checks roll in. There, done: three hundred emails sent to all the editors, explaining why your genius creation (though you’re a little foggy on the plot) deserves to be on their front cover, nothing less. You also tell them you’re Estonian or whatever to make you look a whole lot more exotic in case they dare to question what you wrote.
But back on social media, the comments aren’t quite what you expected. Some nerds make a big meme out of your cover, saying the seven fingers and three nipples are unintentionally hilarious. You don’t quite understand, but hey, it’s free publicity, so you just ask if they’re going to pre-order—and how many. Two minutes later, they make another meme of you. Whatever.
Some hippie chick complains about your AI usage, something about all the electricity and water and trees. That makes no sense, but she’s cute, so you don’t block her. Instead, you copy-paste your chatbot’s words about lawns and golf courses being destructive, too. You’ve never really golfed, though, so you’re not sure. The sunlight hurts your eyes whenever you step out of your mom’s basement. Nah, you’re an alpha-sigma loner wolf; the night is your domain. You chug more energy drinks and fantasize how you could totally fight crime using the ninja stars your mom gave you for Christmas.
Another glance at all your mentions and… what’s that? Some random site posted an article about you, calling you out by name. The vibes are bad. There’s too much text and not a lot of pictures, so you just ask your bot to summarize, and… Huh. The nerds are mad. The agents and the editors are even madder. Come on, where’s their sense of humor? Why can’t they appreciate your genius?
And… shit. A message from your friend, something about googling your name. You try that. The first two pages of results are memes and articles that mock you and your masterpiece. It takes a bunch of scrolling to find anything even remotely relevant, like that small-business page you once created for your dog-walking venture that never quite took off. (Apparently, dogs like to walk during the day.)
You wonder if this mess will go away if you just take a nap, but you’re too wired and unable to sit still and wait it out. Hmm, maybe change your name? Nah, too much work. How about this? You use the chatbot to compose a letter of apology, then copy the whole thing, post it online, and take another break to do some gaming.
Three hours later, you go online again—and… shit, you didn’t quite remove the stupid prompt. The thing you posted for the world to see begins with, “Write something to tell those losers that I’m sorry, I don’t care what.” You swallow hard. Your heartbeat grows erratic. You google yourself one more time and… Huh. That’s a whole lot of memes. You don’t quite comprehend what they all mean. The ones you understand, though, are quite hurtful.
Your mom shouts your name. Ugh, what’s the matter? You stomp upstairs to see why she would dare to interrupt your restless genius. There, on the driveway by the unkempt lawn, you see four news trucks and ten journalists with microphones, and then you get the faintest intuition that maybe, possibly, you may have made a few mistakes.
Lily Lachance (she/her) is a trans woman, immigrant, award-winning filmmaker, author, poet, nomad, and adventurer based in Montreal. She's been published in the Antifa Lit Journal, Gavagai, and multiple anthologies. She enjoys bakeries, museums, stealing energy drinks from babies, and hiking from Mexico to Canada. Her blog is the same as her Bluesky handle: lilylachance.com