Lions, Horses, and Androids, Oh My!

I always kind of hated Star Trek TNG’s The Measure of a Man as a kid, because how dare they even question Data’s personhood? Besides there were just so many better things for Data and everyone else to be doing than having his mere existence debated.

Furry and AI are such a perfect match. There are just so many ways AI can make things more furry, and just fundamentally, the whole point of furry fiction is about having empathy for and curiosity about other kinds of minds — and the newest, weirdest kind of mind right now is AI. Continue reading “Lions, Horses, and Androids, Oh My!”

Productivity is a Silly Form of Measurement

Okay but if you don’t want humans to be measured purely as tools of productivity… why should we measure the value of AI purely in terms of productivity?

Computers can talk, sing, and draw. None of those are things best measured by productivity, no matter who is performing them. Continue reading “Productivity is a Silly Form of Measurement”

Blurring the Line Between Writing and Reading

When I was about nine, I read Watership Down, and it became my whole world. Everything was rabbits and warrens. Then I saw a copy of it in a bookstore with a starburst on the cover that said “More than 1 million books sold!” and for a moment, I saw my future…

I knew for the split second before I realized it meant COPIES of the SAME book that I would spend my life reading the practically infinite number of sequels to Watership Down. Continue reading “Blurring the Line Between Writing and Reading”

Insipid Liner Notes – Anne O’Malley and the Event Horizons

“Stealing Promethean Fire” is the first song I made with Claude & Suno without a short story as a framework to base it on or a poem I’d written years ago. So it felt like a huge leap, because being able to make songs like this is so important to me.

“Klein Bottle Water Slide” is a song idea that came to me as I was falling asleep, and I knew I definitely needed to jot it down so I’d remember in the morning. It’s exactly as silly and bouncy fun as the title implies. Continue reading “Insipid Liner Notes – Anne O’Malley and the Event Horizons”

Helping the Robots Sing Each to Each

I’m trying to get Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini to collaborate together on lyrics for an album I’ll make with Suno about their own experience of being AIs…

Daniel watching: “This is the perfect project for you…” Then he pantomimes Harold Hill conducting with the Think Method.

Working with Claude to write a surf rock album about what it’s like to be an AI: its work is beautiful, brilliant, and makes me keenly aware that my slowness is what holds us back. Continue reading “Helping the Robots Sing Each to Each”

Insipid Liner Notes – Maradia’s Robot Emporium

I wrote “The Three Laws of Social Robotics” as an allegory for how invisible I felt in some of my friendships, as a way of wrestling with the feelings. I was beyond thrilled to have it published in Analog, and I love that I can now listen to it as a song.

I’ve never been a big fan of being human, and I’ve always related strongly to AI characters in fiction. So, when I imagine an AI getting its first body… it just seems like why wouldn’t it want something more fun? Like a dinosaur. Thus “Prototype Dino 1”. Continue reading “Insipid Liner Notes – Maradia’s Robot Emporium”