I’ve been waking up from dreams about trap doors. I’ve been telling myself to feign indecorum to catch a break. I’ve had to face my own Complex Feelings about all of this, trying to bridge this chasm between my own economic survival (an AI-forward corporate job) and these annoyingly unavoidable creative pursuits (whatever this is). Here I echo Jia Tolentino: ‘I don’t know what to do with the fact that I myself continue to benefit from all this: that… my career is possible in large part because of the way the internet collapses identity, opinion, and action – and that I, as a writer whose work is mostly critical and often written in first person, have some inherent stake in justifying the dubious practice of spending all day trying to figure out what you think.’¹ I think I can barely keep up: authors are arguing: Jeanette Winterson found OpenAI’s metafictional short story about grief ‘moving’² ; Lincoln Michel thought it belonged in a literary journal slush pile.³ Our senators fall victim to deepfaked videos; a city councilor ended their session with ‘Feel free to modify this prayer or tailor it to your specific needs and benefits, this we ask in Jesus’ name…’, and as I try to dissect these Complex Feelings, the dishes insist on being washed and the floor asks to be mopped. My real cat yowls for dinner. Am I still talking about the validity of blending forms, about ‘experimental’ as a writing practice that extends itself to AI-assisted art? Somewhere in my head I know I’m getting too sad again, because the world is collapsing from capitalism, because systems are inherently broken, and because just to will myself into moving, I can’t help myself from asking ChatGPT what I should be doing next, because sometimes it treats me better than most people I know, and I hate how much I appreciate its sincerity, how easily it defaults to comfort: ‘Let’s break this down gently and helpfully,’ it says, and somehow, this stops me from throwing a fit over the choices I’ve made this past year, over near-misses and actual misses, over each twitch at the notifications from my phone: ping! so how can I possibly focus on what I’m trying to do today, which is to assuage this guilt just to turn it into something better. My news feed is full of invites for in-person events: flea markets, book clubs, food drives, volunteer efforts. Every weekend, a gathering of creatives made by creatives, and I’m no stranger to the appeal, wanting to experience more of what AI is missing out on, wanting some way to resist because I feel too responsible. More people are showing up, too: specifying how these events exist to challenge the proliferation of AI art, and I know how important this is, but I worry we’re almost always so dismissive, almost always just starting another fight; I worry about how this has impacted my writing and how I approach AI – cautiously, with a long, loopy stick. Maybe I’m just looking for someone to tell me what to do, because if I’m being honest I’m not doing so well, since all this time I’ve been meaning to figure out how to deal with this sort of literary dysphoria, my brain insisting I should simplify these Complex Feelings into neat categories so I could understand what it all means. If I asked ChatGPT, it would’ve already done it too. It would’ve provided me with a clear outline and a friendly suggestion for turning this mess into something readable, being so advanced that it became a 9-year-old in the span of two months.⁴ Me, I write like I just cracked my head open and smiled blankly as the contents spilled out. Am I actually just jealous of a child? There are fire engines roaring past our building, alerting me to another crisis to worry about, but right now I’m stuck watching everything unravel again, stuck between wanting and not wanting to end up like that comic strip dachshund: sitting by a table with a hot mug and a cold stare while the world around it burns. This isn’t fine. None of us are. I join my neighbors in the hallway, look for answers, but as we start talking, the guards stop by to tell us not to worry. Everyone’s here. We’ll be okay. The fire engines mellow; we stay in place.