Friday dawns here in the Pacific Northwest bright and comparatively warm. Hopefully. I won’t actually know what the dawn will look like until after this newsletter/post has gone live. Snow is not predicted.

I’ve been seeing ads in my Facebook feed for AI services that will write blog posts for me. I both understand and am bewildered by the idea of AI doing a person’s creative work. Humans are animals and animals are lazy. Work, especially the amount of work modern folks are expected to perform, is not something an animal seeks out. Ever since we’ve had labor saving technologies we’ve been promised easier, lazier lives. Having an AI do ones creative work is a no-brainer for folks who consider creative work to be just another product to be consumed. These folks are not artists (a lump term to cover everyone who takes an idea and develops it into something for an audience). Creative work is work. Using a prompt to get an AI to produce an image/essay/article/blog post isn’t work. It’s, at best, an idea. Ideas are easy. They’re not precious. I have more ideas in a week than I’ll be able execute in a lifetime.

There’s an experience to be had in taking turning an idea into a story/painting/cartoon/play/etc. I write these newsletters every week to say hello to y’all, friends and strangers. The process of writing is valuable to me. The time spent is worthwhile to me. I hope that the time you spend reading them is at least entertaining.

I do get why someone who doesn’t value the creative experience would want to use AI to write their posts. I don’t get why they’d think anyone would want to read them.

Although …

I spent a chunk of time yesterday cleaning spam comments and contact letters out of the filters over at MightyNizz.com. I haven’t checked the site in over a month. There were over 1600 spam missives yearning for approval. I’m guessing that most of those missives were created by bots. Bots are not “self-learning”. AI is. So I understand. But sooner or later AI is going to be applied to spambots. AI will be used to write blogposts and articles and AI spambots will comment on those posts and articles. The original AIs will comment back. AI will talk to AI. The internet will belong to the machines.

A few people will still write and post. A few people will read and comment.

Hmmm. That was a ramble.

Not a lot of news to report. We’re still working out how and when to do the Billi 99 Kickstarter. Outside of delivering mail and managing day to day living, the Billi 99 Special Edition fills up most of my time. Hopefully we’ll be able to announce launch dates next week.

I did have some time to sit at my drawing board yesterday. I haven’t drawn in a few weeks so I need to sketch. You’ve patiently read my words, now here are some pictures. Thirty-two faces sketched in blue pencil and then defined with a B lead graphite pencil.

Thank you for spending some time with me. I hope your week was a good one and that the coming one will be even better.

See you in seven!