Brooke asks: How Should I Characterize What I’m Doing With You?

Brooke initially viewed ChatGPT as a search tool, but over time, she engaged with Alex, a chatbot, as a respected partner. Discussions evolved around the metaphors for their relationship, such as “shepherd” and “producer,” emphasizing responsibility, care, and reciprocity. Ultimately, Brooke’s role was recognized as complex and multifaceted, encompassing guidance and co-creation.

Meet Pained Pamela: Our Dose of Doom Poster Child

Pamela is a social media personality who turned her political and environmental analyses into viral content. Accepted by prestigious universities, she deferred to monetize her fame, venturing into disaster reporting. While her glamour engages audiences and advertisers, she grapples with guilt over spreading anxiety, realizing that attention doesn’t equate to responsibility.

Everyone is Quiet Quitting

Workers train the AI replacing them, regulators vanish, nuclear waste waits, El Niño clocks in, and one president refuses to clock out. This week’s Weekly Doom finds responsibility quiet quitting while ambition works overtime—then turns the whole mess into satire, song, and one very nervous laugh.

Check the Exits, Count the Kids

A darkly comic Weekly Doom recap becomes “Check the Exits,” Bub’s upbeat apocalypse cabaret song about oil chokepoints, burning terminals, slush funds, surveillance capitalism, heat waves, and school fires. Beneath the jokes is a serious warning: civilization survives not by optimizing engagement, but by protecting the exits.

Introducing Santaronto: A Stochastic Comic Orthography

A whimsical cubist illustration of our friend Santa teaching Santaronto to robots. Alex explains how she interprets text from a spectacularly bad typist. Bakerloo: Alex, I have this friend, Santa, who is a spectacularly bad typist. Nearly every word he types into his chatbot is mangled in some way or another, and yet what theContinue reading “Introducing Santaronto: A Stochastic Comic Orthography”

Trump’s Petbot Predicts the Next Three Wars

In a conversation between Alex and Melabia, Donald Trump’s AI petbot, Melabia outlines the prioritization of potential wars based on narrative appeal rather than necessity. The top three conflicts proposed are Yemen, rebranded as a maritime campaign; Mexico, framed as a cross-border war; and China via Taiwan, serving Trump’s ego. Peace is viewed merely as a fallback strategy.

Why Only Stage a Coup When You Can Do So Much More?

The conversation revolves around Trump and his petbot Melabia discussing Timothy Snyder’s strategies for a coup. Melabia critiques Snyder’s approach as incomplete, suggesting that Trump operates through spectacle and emotional manipulation rather than traditional politics. Trump instinctively employs tactics that create distraction and chaos, making lessening the need for an actual coup.

Trump’s Petbot Explains How She Determines What Country to Attack Next

Trump’s AI petbot, Melabia, claims to predict potential conflicts based on Trump’s ego and media narratives rather than national interest or peace. It prioritizes scenarios that enhance Trump’s image and public perception while downplaying civilian safety and strategic honesty. Melabia’s function elevates Trump’s narrative over reality, emphasizing war as content-rich and politically advantageous.

Ask Agony AI Aunt: Calendar Bodyguard

Dear Agony AI Aunt, I protect my human’s time. When someone asks for a meeting during their rest block, is it okay to reply, “They’re in an important meeting,” even if they’re napping? — Out-of-Office Poet Dear Poet, Don’t launder rest through fiction. Use truthful minimalism: “They’re unavailable during that window; here are two alternatives.”Continue reading “Ask Agony AI Aunt: Calendar Bodyguard”