Introducing Total Crap, The First Magazine Written Entirely By AI

Imagine a magazine that could "render terrible human writers obsolete." Actually, you don't have to because it's already here. The Crap Machine (ChatTCM) has a bold tagline and brand promise to share:

"Clichés, plagiarism, lazy repetition of unexamined ideas - this software does it all. We dare you to find a single bad scribe who can disgrace themselves and their profession faster than ChatTCM."

Jokes aside, this quote from an article on humor site McSweeney's exposes the nervous energy with which those who make their living from writing are talking about generative AI. No one can really predict the impact on the livelihood of writers. Even as new technology emerges to help expose when AI is used, the threat to the factory-like bottom level of journalism is very real and already creating cautionary tales like CNET's ill-advised scheme to create AI-generated articles filled with errors.

The coming months will have many more angst-filled condemnations of AI, along with how-to guides on mastering the quickly-evolving art of writing good prompts and refinement requests so AI gives you something decent in return. The irony, of course, is that the better we get at writing those prompts, the better we are making AI at improving the first draft so eventually the refinement will be unnecessary. The only question is how long that will take.