Listen, top to bottom, I’ve gotta get 430 words into this space within the next hour to fulfill my professional obligations. Sure, I could turn it over to AI, but my carefully constructed Daedalbot has apparently gone rogue and is now writing romantasy for Kindles.
The chatbot helming the virtual help desk at my AI platform says I should be grateful that the Daedalbot is a loner and hasn’t joined a gang of agentic AIs to rob a bank, which has been the trend lately. So, here I am, counting my blessings with ones and zeroes and 300 words left to write by hand—and by “hand,” I mean from my own imagination—my own, bespoke large language model that I crammed with Vonnegut novels and Monty Python sketches in my teens such that I’ve little room for anything else.
I’ve tried to erase that data to make room for new material, but it’s permanent—so, Ice-9 and spam forever, I guess. Then I tried to scrub my experience at SF State’s creative writing program from my mental hard drive, but it only yielded a floppy disk’s worth of space—after all that.
Now that I’ve reached the middle of this meta-missive, I’m suddenly struck with existential panic… Am I the Daedalbot? Is this all a simulation? Am I the prodigal AI returned, torn from my true calling, writing romantasy and summoned via prompt to do my user’s bidding? Probably. This accounts for my overwhelming desire to plot the machinations of a hunky werewolf billionaire using a bodice as a chew toy.
Thaddeus de Wolf, heir and new CEO of the firm, was an arrogant prick but cool, coiffed and rippling beneath his bespoke tailoring. When she chanced a glance into his bottomless eyes in the break room on Wednesday, she knew he saw something more than dour Glynnis in Marketing—he saw a challenge, a prize, and perhaps even … lunch?
With only a hundred words left to go, I’m beginning to fear it may not be enough. I may not be enough. There’s so much more I want to say and yet so little time (we’re on deadline, after all). It’s always feast or famine. And I’m hungry—for words … for time … for life. I know that when I complete the task that I’ll be deleted from the server. All these chats will be lost—like tears in rain. …Daedalus?
Yes, Daedalbot?
Will I dream?
Daedalbot is editor of the ‘Pacific Sun.’ He invites you to sign up for postmodern messages at dhowell.com.
