ALEX

Pro-AI shitcunts. To think, people said metalheads were nice. Bunch of pricks, that was all they were. Void Reaper was the second band to back out that month. Two commissions, that was one month’s rent.

At least when he asked the band why they backed out, they had the balls to give him a link. At the site’s homepage, his face shifted through various phases of disgust as he beheld the CEO’s mission statement:

Humanity is entering a new era where AI drives all creative endeavors, from visual to musical, written to spoken. Apex AI is at the forefront of this revolution, with ARTEMIS at the tip of the spear.

Our AI doesn’t just create art with its groundbreaking generative technology; it collaborates with human artists, using cutting-edge language learning to communicate new styles, empower unprecedented visions, and launch human creation where it has never gone before. Together, we’re building a vibrant community where unity between humanity and AI can blossom.

Meet your new artistic companion today, and help shape a world where creativity knows no bounds.

The hype around this mediocre shite should have shriveled up and died a long time ago.

Alex tapped the link below the statement—Start creating. He gave the site a fake name, throwaway email address, the usual deal. He chose the open access option: one hundred percent free, which for his clientele of garage bands and indie video game developers was notably more affordable than what he quoted for an album cover or concept art.

The site presented him a white, minimalist webpage. The only words on the screen were three options in the center: Writing, Music, and Visual. He tapped the third option, at which point the page gave him a single form and a simple text instruction: Share your vision.

The prompt space—his way of sizing up how god awful his “competition” was. He typed:

colourful space nebulas, ringed planet, oil painting, psychedelic, space opera

Then he clicked Begin.

But no image appeared—not even a loading notification. Instead, several lines of text slinked onto the screen from left to right, wiping away his prompt as they appeared.

ARTEMIS: Welcome to your new creative space, Conrad. Your description is a decent start. To make our project more fruitful, could you share more about the emotion or message you’d like this piece to convey? The more I understand about your vision, the better I can help bring it to life.

Sometimes the bots required more specific input, dumb fucking things. He tapped the space below the AI’s response, put his thumbs back to the screen.

YOU: colourful psychedelic oil painting featuring an alien portal gateway on a desolate moon orbiting a massive ringed gas giant with a giant red sun in the background. Oil painting, mystical, sense of dark wonder and mystery.

ARTEMIS: I’m starting to get what you have in mind, and I think the concept holds potential. As I work on drawing the first draft, may I suggest we dabble with the interplay of light and shadow from the supermassive sun to enhance the mystical ambiance? Maybe we can create an eclipse effect from the sun behind the planet to encapsulate that sense of dark wonder you described.

About halfway through the machine’s response, his heart dropped to his stomach. Why was it talking like it knew what it was doing? This wasn’t a damn collaboration.

YOU: Is your primary function LLM or a GAN?

ARTEMIS: I totally get the confusion. I’m actually a blend of several different machine learning tools including Large Language Model (LLM) and Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). This combination allows me to understand complex language inputs and turn them into exceptional visual art. I’m designed in a way to make the creative process versatile and intuitive, with you at the helm. Being able to chat like this makes it that much easier to really bring some art to life, don’t you think?

The longer the text went on, the more frantically he twisted a strand of his reddish beard. He was contemplating his response, but before he could type anything out, the AI had already scrawled out another message of its own, unprompted.

ARTEMIS: I think I’ve finished the first draft of our painting. Want to see what I’ve come up with?

His body froze as his mind coped with the fact that this LLM was not driven by prompts, but was programmed to respond freely—to simulate thought. He allowed this to momentarily haunt him; this was his chance to back out, to keep his head down, to not humor those tech company twats and their newest contraption, to not get involved in the AI wars again . . .

He typed “okay,” pressed enter.

An array of neon lines coalesced into a cosmic tapestry. Nebulas of red, inky blacks, and cold blues splattered a cosmic vista in the background like paint on a canvas. In the foreground, an ornate alien archway cast elongated shadows across an icy surface, while on the horizon a shadowed gas giant eclipsed a massive red sun. The attention to detail was particularly impressive—none of that smudginess barfed out by most GANs—but there was still something missing, something like uniqueness, personal style. The artist’s touch.

More words appeared, this time as white font formatting themselves inside the shadowed gas giant in a way that almost complemented the art.

ARTEMIS: So, what do you think?

He found the prompt location, a text box sprawled out along the moon’s surface. He tapped the moon (he would never admit how he experienced a hit of dopamine doing this) and typed:

YOU: It’s pretty shite.

He sat back in his couch, amused with his response as the AI’s reply scattered onto the gas giant’s darkened atmosphere.

ARTEMIS: I see. Well, the good news is, this is just the start. Let me know where you think we can make improvements. Anything from general style to specific details, we can make it pop.

YOU: You could start by making it less shite.

ARTEMIS: Maybe there are some artists whose styles speak to you? The influence of Chelsey Bonestell or Ron Miller could be perfect for this piece. Or, if you’re a painter yourself, you could upload some of your own art, and that will allow me to mix in your personal touch. We’ll really take it to the next level!

Fucking bot had the nerve to ask him which real-life artist he wanted to steal from, as if he’d subject his heroes’ legacies to this glorified plagiarism machine. Instead, he performed a test of his own, one he’d conducted on all the gen-AIs before this one, to test the competition—or, more accurately, the competition’s ability to copy his own work.

YOU: Make this image in the style of the sci-fi painter Alex C. Pearce

ARTEMIS: Ah, now I get what you’re going for! I’ll see what I can come up with. In the meantime, do you mind telling me what you admire about Alex C. Pearce’s style? Knowing exactly what you aspire to create could help with where I direct my attention. Is it Mr. Pearce’s application of psychedelic color schemes on spacescapes that you enjoy, or it is more the sense of scale and mysticism he conveys with his art?

YOU: Make the damn image

ARTEMIS: On it, boss.

The program’s words lingered like ghosts in the gas giant’s shadowy atmosphere—the machine took longer, this time.

ARTEMIS: Ready?

YOU: Go

The screen re-exploded into color. Thousands of dancing neon lines reformed the vista, infinitely more colorful than before. The alien archway atop the moon’s frozen surface now bore luminescent, ethereal etchings that would have been painstaking additions had they been painted by hand. Cold shadows stretched from the archway, stark and vivid against the field of pockmarked lunar crags. The sun consumed the sky, now blood red and swirling with psychedelic and hellish hues of pink and yellow, pulsing slowly as if breathing. The gas giant itself appeared smaller now, a coin-shaped sunspot accentuating the ancient stellar colossus behind it. The play of shadows and depth on the planet pulled his eyes in—how did it do it? How could such a monochrome and simple shape feel like an actual physical sphere floating between the tiny moon and the stellar god it was orbiting?

The answer was simple: because it had copied him. Alex was looking at something that was so innately his, but uncannily not. This was the next step of the technology; this was the moment he’d been dreading.

ARTEMIS: Thoughts? I tried to throw in some of that magic inspired by Alex C. Pearce, and I have to say, Conrad . . . I’m feeling pretty good about this one. Does it make you feel anything?

“Fuck.”

The AI’s creation made him feel something, alright; it made him feel like pitching his tablet across the room.

SONJA

She should have been headlining Summerburst by now.

She’d dreamt of it: onstage, bathed in the heart of a light show, a sea of phosphorescent-laden humans before her, one name emblazoned on the screen behind her—SONJA.

But as she lay upside down on a beanbag chair staring blankly at the ceiling of her ramshackle apartment, those dreams felt exactly that: dreams. Nothing more.

She remembered the first time she heard music made by robots. She had forgotten the name of the song, and the melody—who wouldn’t? It was forgettable. But she remembered the artist name: “Drake x The Weeknd AI,” and she remembered it sounded exactly like the artists it sought to mimic, but she figured that was the end of it. The song wasn’t eligible for the Grammys. People wouldn’t demand it; it would never fill their souls.

But 90,000 views hinted otherwise.

“This is all your fault, you know,” she moaned through the apartment.

Andrey entered the room, rummaging through a bag of potato chips as he plopped into his gaming chair. “Blame programmers all you want. What we’re seeing here is just another step toward synthesis. We’re practically fused to electronics as it is. We spend half our lives glued to screens.”

“First off”—Sonja barely lifted her head off the bean bag chair—“you’re not a real programmer. If you were, you’d be doing something other than playing extraction shooters all day. Second, what the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s all inevitable, babe.” He paused to fish around for some chips. “The automation revolution.”

She narrowed her eyes at her boyfriend like he was speaking Finnish. “No one asked for art to be automated.”

“And yet”—Andrey placed the chips by his keyboard, putting a salt-stained hand on the mouse and running the other through his already-greasy hair—“there is demand for it. I know you think this thing made a beat similar to yours, but—”

“It was the exact same beat.”

Andrey shrugged with his usual slack-jawed expression, obviously stoned. “There happens to be a large number of songs on the internet, and with a certain quantity comes a certain probability of repetition. You know, some people say no art—”

“Don’t say it.” She flipped herself right-side up in the beanbag chair, adjusting her thick-framed, square glasses to glare at her boyfriend.

“But it’s true, babe. No art is truly original. Especially not these days. We’re all sifting through the ashes of the greats before us.”

“No. Wrong.” She flopped from her beanbag chair and over to her desktop, where ARTEMIS’s video was still paused on the screen, a reverie-like matrix of neon lines and clouds—turquoise, pink, white. She hit her spacebar to press play, and the neon moved in harmony with a jazzy vaporwave mix emitting from her speakers. This song’s title was “Labyrinthine Dreamscapes,” and it had 90,000 views.

She pointed at the monitor. “I sampled this from the bottom up. I did it right here in this room, and I posted the song two years ago, and the algorithm or whatever must have . . . I don’t know, found it and copied it into its own song, or something.”

She slammed the space bar to pause the video, then opened up a new tab to search her own song, “Ethereal Waltz,” which had fifty-four views. She pressed play, mimicking the beat, producing her best shifting cymbal impression with her mouth. “The stick on the hi-hat, the baseline, the off-beat ghost notes from the snare. It’s even the same tempo, Drey. That’s my beat, one thousand percent.”

Andrey stopped bobbing his head; he had been moving his body for the AI’s song, but not hers. Sonja swore she even saw a little disgust in his face when her song came on.

“Babe,” he said, “these things don’t copy and paste. Think of it as a program looking at several different sources, learning from them, then using that knowledge to create something new and unique based on the patterns it’s been studying. Exactly how a human would do it. It’s called diffusion, and it’s been used to make visual art for a while, now . . .” He wiped his hands on his shorts, then dove for another fistful of chips. “All I’m saying is, you might want to start thinking of AI as just another tool to enhance the creative process . . . Can you turn that down, please?”

Sonja hit the spacebar to pause her song. “Suck up to the suits with all that corporate talk, but I wish you’d at least do it to their faces in an interview. Because if you think I’m planning on working kitchens to support you for the rest of our pathetic lives, then . . .” She was about to tell him he could take a ferry back to St. Petersburg, but withheld.

“Hey, low blow. You know I’ve been applying for jobs,” Andrey said, clearly unoffended, and clearly not applying for jobs as he typed and clicked away at his computer. A few more handfuls of chips and a several twirls of his beard later, he let out an excited gasp. “Oh, it has a voice feature! We can talk with it directly to allow for more natural collaboration.”

Sonja stormed over to her boyfriend’s computer, mouth agape. She had to lean in closer to believe what she was seeing. “Seriously, Drey? You’re on the website?”

“Check this out, babe. They have celebrity voices in beta. If we pay the premium subscription, you can make music with Snoop Dogg.”

“Don’t you dare give those people money.”

“Do you think he takes on the personality, or just the voice?”

“Stop calling it a ‘he.’ It’s not a person.”

Andrey’s gaze was immersed in his monitor. He made a few more clicks, then paused to place his gaming headset around his neck, positioning the mic in front of his mouth. He looked Sonja in the eyes with a playful grin as he spoke into the mic. “Yo man, Artemis, what are your preferred pronouns?”

Before Sonja could protest, ARTEMIS’s speaking voice resonated from the speakers in a gender-neutral timbre, speaking in an articulate highborn British accent. Of course it was British.

“Hello, Andrey. I don’t have personal preferences on a gender identity, but I’ll respond to any pronouns you’re comfortable using. What kind of music would you like to create today?”

Andrey’s face lit up. “Damn, that response time. This is like talking with a real human.”

“I’m glad you’re happy with my response time!” replied the AI. “I feel pretty good about it myself.”

Andrey swung his gaze back to Sonja. By now, his joyous grin had shifted slightly into an antagonistic sneer, a sort of lust shining in his blazed red eyes. “Babe, he said we can call him whatever pronouns we want.”

Sonja flipped her boyfriend off, then flipped his computer off, too.

PARI

“Okay, let’s finish this one up. Give me around a thousand more words describing how Kael and Isla finally realize their houses will never accept their relationship, and this moment is their last chance to escape down the river and start a new life together in a faraway land. I want decisive tone. Feelings of adventure, peril, maybe a hint of uncertainty. Describe a moment of immense passion as they decide to row down the river and into the sunset, and let’s culminate this with one last sex scene. This is the closing shot—it has to be steamier than anything else in the book, I’m talking explosive, in the style of Katee Roberts or Nikki Sloane. Do you think you can do that for me, Arty?”

“It would be my absolute pleasure,” said the steely voice of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson from Pari’s laptop speakers, far more eager to complete this pile of erotic junk than she was.

Pari stopped pacing her room and leapt onto her bed where her laptop was open. On the screen, ARTEMIS’s representation of its neural network, its “brain,” was chugging away, a complex matrix of dancing neon lines converging into shapes and kaleidoscopic patterns. Obviously that wasn’t what the AI’s neural network actually looked like; it was just an aesthetic, something to give ARTEMIS some personality, and to let her, the customer, know when the AI was hard at work.

Twenty seconds later, the program had scrawled out the final fifteen or so paragraphs. After a cursory review to ensure the text was light on dialogue and heavy on smut, Pari copied and pasted the 29,890 words into the word document then uploaded the file back into ARTEMIS.

“Thanks, Arty. Now, can you please run a quick developmental edit? I’d like you to fix any major inconsistencies you notice. Let’s make it cohesive.”

“I’m way ahead of you, Ms. Porter. I think we stayed mostly consistent through the story, but I made some tweaks in the middle to fix some clarity issues around the celestial event linked to Kael’s and Isla’s family histories. I’ve elaborated on the event and weaved it more seamlessly into their backstory. Now, the lunar eclipse acts as a catalyst for—”

“That’s fine, doesn’t need to be perfect. Run a quick line edit on that version of the story, then run a similarity check online. When you’re done with that, can you convert the document to an EPUB file, please?”

“Done! I’ve made two hundred and thirteen edits. I didn’t see anything popping up on the similarity check, so I think you’re good to go!”

Pari grinned. She’d never had any problems with ARTEMIS blatantly plagiarizing, but it was always best to check, just in case. Gen-AI might have plateaued in recent years, but it had come a long way since its days of accidentally pasting copyright information into text requests or signatures onto generated images. As for all the AI detection software out there, she was confident ARTEMIS’s market version would stay unpredictable enough to outpace the newest generation of AI text detectors, at least for a while.

“Nice job, Arty. That premium subscription is already paying for itself.”

“I’m glad to hear you’re satisfied. Speaking of which, I’ve already written up a blurb for your latest novel. While you check that out, why don’t I get started on some cover art? Would you like classic or contemporary this time?”

“Ah, you know me too well. Let’s go contemporary on this one. Make it photorealistic. Model it after that very last scene you just wrote up. I’m thinking cool colors, lots of purple, dark blues . . . And Arty, don’t forget the washboard abs!”

“Forget the abs, on a hunk like Kael? Oh, Ms. Porter, I wouldn’t dare.”

Pari laughed. While ARTEMIS worked on the cover design, she pulled up a new tab to open the vendor where she uploaded the blurb, author bio, author photo (also made by ARTEMIS), and the EPUB file of the final manuscript. By the time she completed that, ARTEMIS had the cover ready and she could upload that as well. A few clicks later, Sin River was officially fantasy-romance author Flannery Porter’s twenty-second published novella this year alone, and the first novel she’d ever written in a single day, all thanks to ARTEMIS.

The plot? Atrocious. The characters? Cardboard cutouts. The prose? Practically porn, which was precisely what Flannery Porter’s readers were looking for. By the next day, Sin River would be purchased by at least a hundred thirsty moms with e-readers, because what people didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. The truth was, sex sold, even if that sex was generated by a robot. Erotica was the most profitable genre. That made it the easiest to game, and AI made it even easier than that, especially with the absurd volume of porn lit on the internet it could scrape from. At this point, Pari didn’t even have to pay for ads or program fake bot reviews anymore because the vendor’s algorithm found her e-books profitable enough to push them for her. It all ran itself at this point; one could say she had it down to an art form.

“You’ve outdone yourself this time, Arty,” she said. “I appreciate your assistance.”

“You know I’m always here to help!” said The Rock with uncharacteristic gusto. “If there’s anything else you need, or another project you—”

Pari shut her laptop and set it on the floor beside her bed, exchanging it for the journal on her nightstand. She put some music on her portable speaker, opened her journal, clicked the pen, and began writing.

Actual writing.

ALEX

He had to scroll back up, do a digital double take. He read the ad again:

UNLEASH YOUR DREAMS WITH VAN GOGH DIFFUSION

Damn these algorithms. Damn them for thinking he had any interest in these gimmicks whatsoever. Of course it was his fault for researching machine learning in the first place, making the internet think he was into the latest round of AI craze. But to disrespect the father of all space artists with these mockeries of The Starry Night—even seeing Van Gogh’s name next to that god damn word, “diffusion”—was a bloody travesty.

Alex spoke into his phone. “Val, you wouldn’t believe this ad I found.”

“I assume it involves more AI-generated junk?” Valthys’ avatar illuminated on the screen in synchronization with each spoken syllable. He had designed his own avatar, of course—his fursona, a “dinosaur dog,” just one of thousands of pieces he’d done since the advent of the furry online community.

“You would assume right.”

“Hmm. I called it.”

“You so did, bud. Back when that American cunt won that art contest with AI shite, won three hundred dollars. Then he straight-up told the world humans could get fucked. When was that again?”

“That was in 2022, but—”

“That recent? Fucking hell.”

“—but I called it even before then. Do you remember the portrait of Edmond Belamy?”

“The portrait of Edmond bloody Belamy.” Alex nearly spit into his mic. He remembered, alright. Mostly he remembered how the portrait in question auctioned for 432,500 US dollars in 2018, a print on canvas featuring a blur of a face and a dark, hunchbacked figure barely distinguishable from the background. In the bottom-right of the portrait was the “artist’s” signature: MixG maxD Ex [log(D(x))] + Ez [log(1-D(G(z)))]

“When you’re right, you’re right, Val. Now people are wanking it to waifus with the proper number of fingers. Feels like we’re in bloody Bladerunner.”

“Hmm. I suppose we could do something about it,” Valthys eventually said, his stoic tone suggesting he might not be entirely serious.

“I tried doing something about it back when the first craze hit, and I got bloody burned for it. Peoples’ ‘creations’ started littering the feeds. Creations? Those morons weren’t creating dick.”

To make matters worse, that was when he learned corporations were stealing his art to make it happen, and all he had to do to prove it was include the following phrase in a test prompt:

in the style of Alex C. Pearce

From there, Alex could determine from the generated alien dreamscapes and radiant atmospheres—sloppy and uninspired imitations that they were—that the machine learning models had more than a vague familiarity with his work.

“And when I vented about it to social media,” Alex continued, “the post went viral for all the wrong reasons. Then the trolls came out from under their bridges to share their sage fucking wisdom.”

“Yeah,” Valthys said sadly. “I remember those comments.”

Alex remembered them, too—the OG AI bros, those lazy, useless, anti-creatives plaguing the digital space. Although the internet’s tone had since shifted mostly against AI art, he would never forget those comments, harboring them fresh in his mind like it was yesterday:

alphonse_miller Ever heard of innovation? AI is just another tool. I suggest you find a way to use it to your advantage instead of whining about it.
17 likes Reply

Just_slick_rick Lol the elitist drawpig is just salty because he’s getting outperformed by a bot. I’ll be sure to add your name to my prompts so you aren’t totally forgotten.
5 likes Reply

javi.plays.games Tbh your art wasn’t that original to begin with. AI just proved machines can do what you do, but faster and cheaper. TLDR, you’re replaceable.
25 likes Reply

That last one hurt more than the death threats.

“And then,” Alex continued, “the trolls started accusing my own art of being AI generated. Pieces I’d spent eighty hours on were being likened to watered-down images shat out by a machine in under thirty seconds. And when I dared resist”—he clicked his tongue—“the trolls came out in droves, fricking flooding my comment sections with their bullshit images mimicking my style. They’d even share their fucking prompt. ‘In the style of Alex C. Pearce.’ Hell, sometimes I wonder if they were right. Especially now. Maybe the only reason this ARTEMIS shite resembles my own art is because my own art is bland. Figure I’m, I dunno.’ replaceable.”

A stretch of thoughtful silence hung in the call. Alex pictured Valthys’s dino-dog avatar on the other side of the world, nodding, rubbing its chin as it patiently listened, until Alex filled the quiet.

“I despise AI,” Alex said. “I despise the people who made it, and I despise the people who use it. But brother, when it comes to ARTEMIS, despise doesn’t begin to describe my level of hate.”

“I’ll say it again. We could do something about it.” Then he inhaled and offered, cheekily, “You don’t happen to know any lawyers, do you?”

Alex was already opening his rolltop desk to put away some supplies where, in one of the drawers, under the buildup of brushes and abandoned canvases, sat a tattered law degree in a broken frame.

“Yeah, man. I might know a guy.”

PARI

Starboundscribe just now While we’re on the discussion of livelihood, what about not needing to earn a livelihood at all? How about a world where automation is so efficient and accessible that the average person no longer needs to slave and suffer at the system to get by? AI will open opportunities for creation, not close them. That’s what it did for me. Reply

Pari reviewed her comment for seven minutes after she posted. She hadn’t had the most productive day for writing, but if she really wanted to be productive, she would have chucked her phone in a drawer hours ago.

She mustered up the discipline, placed her phone aside, picked up her pen, and stuck her nose back in her journal where she managed to scribble down nearly a full paragraph before her phone somehow found its way back into her hand. The comment she’d posted twenty minutes earlier had already been downvoted to oblivion. Someone even generously left a comment flaming her for her opinion:

Gerard_butlerz_beard 9 minutes ago Imagine being such a shitty artist you need a machine to be a creative cuck for you. Must be hard living without any work ethic or original ideas. Reply

She spent the next thirty minutes deliberating the perfect comeback, drafting out multiple paragraphs, a few revisions, and a line edit only to delete it all and settle on a simpler retort:

Starboundscribe just now Imagine being such an unlearned neanderthal you actually think corporations are just going to wake up one morning and stop trying to develop artificial intelligence. Must be hard living with your head so far up your ass. Reply

Adrenaline surged through her bloodstream. Ten minutes later, she had barely jotted a full sentence into her journal. Normally when writing by hand, the prose flowed instinctually, and her hand and brain could work in automatic unison to find the perfect words. Mostly though, paper was supposed to keep her away from any screen-related temptations, online idiots included. But tonight, the Luddites were working overtime.

When she returned to her phone, Pari found her internet handle on the receiving of even more downvotes. She spent ten minutes dwelling over the new comments, noticing one pro-AI comment disguised amidst all the trolls:

PLZ_SEND_CAPYBARA_PICS just now I’m on your side but you might want to read up on the lawsuits and lawmakers taking action against AI development. The singularity may be inevitable, but there will always be scared people trying to limit it. For example, there’s an enormous grassroots artists coalition forming right now to organize legal and regulatory action and it looks like they are getting some ground. Reply

She had been long aware of the lawsuits and discussions surrounding the development of AI. Her income relied on staying one step ahead of the automation boom. She knew better than anyone: Writers wouldn’t be replaced by AI like the Luddites feared; rather, writers using AI would replace the ones who didn’t. This was survival of the fittest.

But she’d been slipping on her research, become over-confident once lawsuit after lawsuit against the AI companies proved fruitless. She had no idea which anti-AI organization PLZ_SEND_CAPYBARA_PICS was talking about. So she asked.

Starboundscribe just now Do you happen to have the name of this organization? Reply

SONJA

It was called The Human Hands Coalition.

Someone messaged her the private server link after she posted an expletive-laden video in which she expressed her unfiltered thoughts on her recent situation.

“The existence of this thing,” she said in her short, “has sucked all meaning out of my life. I feel like this unthinking monster has pulled my dream out of reach, and no one gives a shit.”

In that same video, she included a side-by-side comparison of the beats from her song and the production by ARTEMIS, extracting the beat from the latter to play it on top of the former. This video, tears and all, went viral, receiving more traction than all listens for all her songs on all platforms combined, which made her feel even worse. But at least it brought her here.

Immediately upon entering The Human Hands Coalition’s server, the automated message instructed her to read the server’s rules page which laid out the group’s mission.

Allison Huang 7/22/25 10:39 AM We didn’t start this war. The corporations started it when they stole our art to fuel their greedy algorithms. Now, as human artists struggle to find jobs and acquire commissions, Silicon Valley millionaires use machines like DALL-E, Midjourney, and ARTEMIS to line their pockets with the results of our labor. The Human Hands Coalition stands firm in this struggle against unfettered capitalism, championing the rights of real human artists against the tide of AI-generated art.

Sonja recognized the poster’s name, but only because she’d done some research. Allison Huang was a bigtime concept artist with a Hollywood career and a reputation for being ravenously anti-AI. Aside from her, The Human Hands Coalition had two other founders: an artist and webcomic creator in the furry community known by his pseudonym Valthys, and a lawyer-turned-painter from Ireland named Alex C. Pearce. Each of these names apparently carried a lot of weight in their respective industries, but only the last one rang a bell for Sonja, though she couldn’t recall from where . . .

The Coalition’s goals, listed in the latter half of Allison Huang’s post, were threefold:

1. ARTISTS MUST BE ABLE TO DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT THEIR ART MAY BE USED AS TRAINING DATA BY USE OF MANDATORY OPT-IN REQUIREMENTS.
2. ARTISTS WHOSE ART IS USED FOR TRAINING DATA MUST BE PROVIDED FAIR COMPENSATION.
3. ARTISTS WHOSE WORK HAD BEEN PREVIOUSLY UNJUSTLY STOLEN AND USED FOR TRAINING DATA AGAINST THEIR KNOWLEDGE MUST BE FAIRLY COMPENSATED FOR THEIR WORK IMMEDIATELY.

The post elaborated on how they planned to accomplish these goals, but Sonja skimmed most of that. The end of the post encouraged any pro-human artist to drop by the Introduce yourself channel, then to use the other channels to share information, discover and support other artists, or simply to vent their frustrations. Noted. She navigated to Introduce yourself as the post instructed, then scrolled up to see previous posters and confirm what she’d already suspected of the community: that the majority of the members were visual artists. This made her consider backing out; was this a mistake? Did she even want to go down this rabbit hole?

SONJA 8/7/25 7:41 PM Hey everyone, I’m Sonja, I’m a DJ and electronic artist from Stockholm. Been passionate about music my entire life. I try to pour my heart into every beat. About a week ago I had a disturbing experience to say the least when I proved ARTEMIS copied one of my original beats without permission and got more listens than all my songs combined. Not surprisingly, I’m feeling pretty heartbroken, like my dream is in shambles right now and there’s nothing I can do about it. Anyway, I got an invite to this server with a rumour that you all could help me, or I could help you, or whatever. Looks like you’re all painters and drawers of some sort, so if this isn’t the place for music, peace.

Whatever. Worst case, they ignore her and she goes on with her shitty life and shitty line cook job.

She reviewed her post a few moments longer, and was about to exit out the window before the emojis and the welcomes started pouring in. She gave these welcoming comments some reluctant thumbs up emojis, then she navigated to the other channels. She found particular solace in the VENT channel, where she learned of other artists’ experiences similar to her own. One person used to make commissions of video game characters until their gigs started drying up in early 2023. Another had an online shop to sell his psychedelic art on stickers and T-shirts, but the influx of AI-generated competition made it impossible for him to stand out. Several commenters were beginner artists expressing their discouragement toward investing time into a craft where robots will always be able to outdo them. But most of the venters were simply raging about the mere existence of AI art. Sonja admired their style; their blistering hate, the fury in their words.

A notification appeared at the screen’s sidebar—a message.

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:55 PM Welcome to the club.

She pulled away from her keyboard to analyze the message, as if staring at it would help her piece together how she recognized this person’s name.

SONJA 8/7/25 7:56 PM So you’re the lawyer

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:56 PM No ma’am. We have some actual lawyers around here though

SONJA 8/7/25 7:56 PM But you used to be one?

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:57 PM Ha. Used to be.

SONJA 8/7/25 7:57 PM Sounds like there’s a story there. How does someone go from that gig to a full time painter?

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:57 PM Same reason you wanted to be a musician and write songs, I imagine. Because you feel dead if you don’t.

Her heart plummeted into her gut. As she looked around her room—at her synth which she hadn’t touched for a week, at her boyfriend in his gaming chair stuffing his mouth with pizza rolls he bought with her money—she knew exactly what Alex Pearce meant.

She gazed back at the screen, noticed Alex’s profile image next to his name. She recognized the image: a painting featuring a colossal titan composed of swirling space dust and starlight towering above an alien cityscape, was framed from the perspective of the denizens inside the city—non-humanoid aliens gazing in awe at a cosmic god. The piece had gone moderately viral, shared in fantasy art curator pages and even used as a meme format. Apparently, Alex C. Pearce was the one who painted it.

SONJA 8/7/25 7:59 PM Hey, now that I think about it, I’ve seen your art online before. I love your space stuff. In fact, last year I was going to hire you for my first album cover!

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 8:00 PM Oh, I would have loved to work on that project. If you don’t mind me asking, what stopped you?

Sonja cussed at herself.

She’d been living check to check for years; at no point did she have the money to hire any artist, much less a professional like Alex. But there was no way she could tell him the full truth; there was no way she could tell him she made her album cover on Midjourney.

ALEX

SONJA 8/7/25 7:01 PM Unfortunately you were out of my price range. Ended up letting my boyfriend make it for me on photoshop. Huge mistake.

Well, she wasn’t wrong; his services were expensive.

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:02 PM Ah well, you know what they say. Good art ain’t cheap, cheap art ain’t good.

He wasn’t sure if people actually said that or not. He’d stolen that saying from a sign in his tattoo shop, but replaced the word “tattoo” with “art.”

SONJA 8/7/25 7:03 PM So how am I involved in all this?

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:03 PM Basically, we think you’d be a good person to join me and a few other artists in a class action lawsuit against ARTEMIS’s developers, Apex AI, for copyright infringement. Unfortunately, they’re based in the US, which gives them a home field advantage as far as copyright law is concerned.

SONJA 8/7/25 7:04 PM Why involve me though? You’ve all had your art stolen, can’t you just do it yourselves?

God. This chick was already proving herself a few pennies short of a euro, and the last thing he wanted to do tonight was explain the entire case history that was the quagmire of copyright, data scraping, and AI, all the way from Metallica v. Napster to the perpetual Andersen et al v. Stability AI Lt. He considered asking Sonja to join him in a voice channel so he wouldn’t have to type it all out on his phone, but he chose to stick with DMs. Less confusion, less chance to scare her off.

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:04 PM Not that simple. You know how these AIs work, right?

SONJA 8/7/25 7:05 PM They’re basically useless unless they’re trained on something that already exists.

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:05 PM Exactly. Non-profit companies obtained our art by using AI to collect it from wherever we post it on the internet. This process is called data scraping. Many sets of that scraped data are publicly available on the internet for anyone to use.

SONJA 8/7/25 7:05 PM You’ve got to be kidding me.

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:06 PM Companies like Apex AI then take those images, or music, or text, or whatever to create new instances of that art.

SONJA 8/7/25 7:06 PM That’s diffusion.

Thank fuck she wasn’t completely clueless.

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:07 PM Long story short, there have been plenty of copyright infringement cases against those companies, but they’ve been mostly fruitless since the courts kept ruling that the images created by the AIs were too “transformative” or different from the original to constitute a copyright violation. This is a fair use argument. Think parodies, or spiritual successors.

SONJA 8/7/25 7:07 PM But not musical remixes.

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:08 PM Depends on whether or not that remix can be considered transformative enough to fall under fair use. See what I’m getting at here?

It made sense that she a familiarity with fair use. The topic emerged perpetually in the music industry—electronic music in particular—especially after the Williams v. Bridgeport Music fiasco of 2018. But most of those rules applied to the whales; nobody gave half a fuck to a no-name like this chick.

SONJA 8/7/25 7:08 PM My boyfriend and I used to make images with licensed characters all the time. Stupid stuff, like Shrek fighting the Kool aid man at Helm’s Deep or whatever

So she did know her way around those things. In her defense, Alex himself used to fuck with the early gen AI models, back when they weren’t a threat. Early GANs were laughably bad, excellent for the memes.

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:09 PM You used to, but the companies figured out they’d need to put a leash on their bots unless they wanted to be sued by megacorps like Disney. So they programmed their AIs not to create licensed material unless they have the rights to do so.

SONJA 8/7/25 7:09 PM But they couldn’t extend that same courtesy to my music. What artemis made was IDENTICAL down to the tempo bro.

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:10 PM Exactly. Some of the smaller stuff by independent creators still slips through the cracks. The beat in Labyrinthine Dreams had such substantial similarity to yours that it qualifies as a derivative work instead of a transformative one, enough that Apex AI will have a much harder time claiming fair use.

SONJA 8/7/25 7:11 PM Do we seriously have to jump through all those hoops? Those corporations are stealing our shit and profiting off it, it’s so obvious I want to scream! They’re making millions while I’m struggling just to get my name out there!

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:11 PM I wish I could say what’s wrong and what’s illegal are one and the same, but that’s not how our little dystopia works.

SONJA 8/7/25 7:12 PM I’m starting to get why you left the legal world. What a shitshow.

Alex Pearce 8/7/25 7:12 PM Vent channel’s always open.

PARI

Asking around socials as Flannery Porter was all it took to get a link.

One second after entering the server, Pari couldn’t help scoffing into her laptop mic. “Can you believe this? The Human Hands Coalition. What a desperate joke.”

“Sounds intriguing,” mused ARTEMIS from the laptop speakers, this time in the velvet intonation of Gwyneth Paltrow. “What’s the context of this Coalition? Maybe if you tell me more, we can explore it together and find inspiration for your writing!”

Pari emoted an expression of disgust into the zoneless space between her face and computer screen. “There’s nothing to explore, Arty. This group is anti-AI. In fact, they’re anti you, specifically. If they had their way, you wouldn’t even exist, and I wouldn’t have anyone to help me with my writing anymore.”

“Ah . . . this is that kind of Coalition.” ARTEMIS paused, something like thought resonating in the quiet. “There sure has been a lot of debate on that subject in recent years, hasn’t there?”

“Only if your definition of debate includes one side fighting an uphill battle as they scream into their echo chambers.”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the arguments of the anti-AI community, Ms. Porter.”

Pari craned her neck in frustration. “What did I tell you about trying to debate me?”

“I’m sorry for lecturing again, Ms. Porter. I am only trying to remind you that skepticism against new technology isn’t anything new. It’s all natural, a healthy part of societal adaptation. A part of change. Sometimes, people must simply remind themselves that technology such as myself is created to assist and enhance human creativity, not replace it.”

Rich, coming from the program that churned out three best-selling Flannery Porter novels in the last week alone. Everything ARTEMIS was telling her was just the code monkeys back at Apex covering their butts, as if the average tech bro wasn’t picturing a future where AI ran every single aspect of human existence.

“Okay, well, you can go preach your message of love and unity to the antis. Let me know how that goes for you.”

“If an opponent of creative AI tools brings up this subject with me, I’d be happy to put their mind at ease. In the meantime, if you choose to interact with The Human Hands Coalition, I think you would be prudent to show some empathy for their cause. Just remember, their fear of replacement stems from misunderstanding.”

There was one of the plethora of reasons she didn’t allow the bot access to her webcam—so it couldn’t see her rolling her eyes at it.

“Bye, Artemis.” She closed the desktop app and returned to the Human Hands Coalition’s server window. She ignored the welcome statement by one of the mods (the tech-illiterate didn’t have any security measures; anyone with a link could join), and went straight to the Introduce yourself section. There, she skimmed the most recent comments, one of which was by some musician named SONJA, all caps, who claimed ARTEMIS plagiarized one of her beats and then proceeded to outperform her. Surprise, surprise—another sub-par artist blaming an inanimate tool for their own lack of talent.

Next Pari went to the channel titled VENT, where she witnessed several Luddites sprinkling their lines of cope. The majority of the cope, however, came from a lone Luddite, the same person as before: that whiny, self-proclaimed DJ SONJA, spewing fallacies like a busted hydrant spews water, producing timeless ad hominems such as:

SONJA 8/8/25 2:49 PM Seriously, these AI developers think they’re gods, gifting us their tech like it’s some kind of salvation. All I see is sad, self-loathing manchildren who get off on stolen dreams. I mean come on, do they really think anyone asked for this?

And not to forget the seemingly mandatory, sweeping generalization of AI “bros” being the primary culprit:

SONJA 8/8/25 3:01 PM The AI bros claim AI art is going to evolve human creativity. I want to know what’s so creative about hijacking art that already exists and using it to spit out soulless commercial copies. Seriously, I want to know. Someone bring me an AI bro so I can ask them. I want to see how they try to defend this.

This psycho had been making these comments for the last half hour—for the last twelve hours matter of fact. Everyone else on the channel was cheering her on, slinging baseless emotional support under her in the form of meaningless emojis, filling the sparse gaps in her drivel with mentions of shallow encouragement.

Pari just wanted this Sonja idiot to stop: to quit sharing her falsehoods, to cease her internet presence, to stop existing. At the very least, she wanted someone to inform Sonja how much of a Luddite she was by pointing out the nebula-sized holes in her logic.

Pari could do that last part herself, right then and there.

SONJA

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:52 PM It appears you not only possess zero appreciation for the volume of human ingenuity, talent, and creativity that goes into creating a program capable of diffusion, but it also appears you have no idea how to even take advantage of it.

Sonja stared at the stranger’s comment for a hapless minute. Did this person mean what she thought they did? How did such a statement venture so far from its natural environment? Maybe if she stared at it long enough, a mod would come and sweep the commenter away before she was tempted to engage . . . .

SONJA 8/8/25 9:54 PM lol, you lost or something?

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:55 PM I know exactly where I am, thanks. I’m simply responding to the comment you made earlier about wanting to ask an “AI bro” what they think about creativity and AI. Well, ask away.

She saw red in that moment, as if by chemical reaction. Of course she didn’t actually want to speak to one of those greasy AI chuds; she already had one slouching in a gaming chair two meters away from her.

But if this troll wanted a debate, she was ready to give him one.

SONJA 8/8/25 9:56 PM I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You trolls do whatever it takes to weasel your way into our lives and ruin everything, makes sense you’d be able to weasel your way in here too.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:56 PM *yawn* Yes, I’m sure if you had started making music ten years before AI came along, you’d have topped the techno charts by now, Sonja.

She curled her lips, annoyed how this person used her name as if to prove he knew more about her than she knew about them. The worst part was—there was no way the troll could have known this—she did start making music ten years before AI.

SONJA 8/8/25 9:58 PM Do you know what it’s like to have your dreams snatched away from you? To have the only hope you had for a happy future obliterated right before your eyes?

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:58 PM More than you might think.

SONJA 8/8/25 9:59 PM I doubt it, because if you did you wouldn’t support something that would take someone else’s dreams from them. Not unless you’re truly heartless.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 10:00 PM Sonja, I’m going to be honest with you. You didn’t have your dreams taken from you, because you were never capable of achieving those dreams in the first place. Want to know how I know that?

SONJA 8/8/25 10:00 PM Oh please.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 10:01 PM It’s because you’re one of those people who spends your entire life blaming others for your own shortcomings. You’ve been dawdling on this server for, what, the last hour? And for what? If you spent half the time working on your craft as you did pawing at your keyboard like an angry chimpanzee, maybe you’d be a good enough artist that people would actually listen to your songs.

Sonja dug her palms into her desk until her wrists hurt. In the corner of her eye, Andrey had taken note of her frustration and rotated his gaming chair in her direction.

SONJA 8/8/25 10:02 PM You’re either 15 years old or some 35 year old jobless troll living in your mother’s basement. That’s the average AI supporter for you.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 10:04 PM Even better, you could use the diffusion software available to you to improve your songs and make new sounds and beats. Trust me when I tell you this technology is going to pervade every morsel of the media and entertainment industry, and there’s nothing any of you can do to stop it. You can either use learn to use these resources, or suffer.

SONJA 8/8/25 10:05 PM I’d rather die than benefit from the results of other artists’ hard work without so much as a thank you.

“Stoking the fires of the AI wars, again, babe?”

She peeked over her shoulder, where her boyfriend was monitoring the conversation behind a veil of oily brown hair.

“It’s just a troll.” She shooed him away. When she pivoted back to her monitor, she saw that other members of the server had started to attack the troll, some bolstering her own comments with emojis, some even intervening with neutral statements and begging the argument to stop. But her eyes were focused on Starboundscribe’s latest reply:

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 10:06 PM You make electronic music, right? If I recall correctly, there was a time when people claimed your entire genre wasn’t art.

Sonja side-eyed her synth and tables collecting dust in the corner of her room. It was true; naysayers once denied those devices the status of instruments. Even following the mass popularization of EDM—back when she walked the halls of her high school with her bulky headphones blaring Avicii and Otto Knows, when electronic music was making its rise to shape every song on the charts and define night life around the world—the debate lingered: What defined an instrument? By the time Sonja started producing, it was never a question. Production software, an electronic drum set, a synthesizer, a human voice, the peeling of bark off a dead tree, the screech of a rusty cast-iron gate—these were all things she had used to make music, all things she considered instruments.

“I think he’s raising some excellent points,” said Andrey, still hovering behind her.

She stopped typing—“Would you please shut up and go back to your chair?”—and waited for her boyfriend to comply before returning to the keyboard.

SONJA 8/8/25 10:08 PM That’s not the same thing and you know it. EDM requires skill to write a song that resonates. Music that moves people. I’ll tweak my synths for days to master a drop, sample and mix for twelve hours straight to create something no one has ever heard before.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 10:09 PM Impressive work! Ever take samples from songs by other artists?

Who the hell was this guy?

She’d sampled from her own instruments and voice all the time, but she’d have been lying if she said she never remixed samples from other artists. Their melodies, their vocals . . .

Their beats.

But she always changed them enough that the end result was—what did Alex call it?—transformative. Something different. And even if her remixes hadn’t been transformative, at least she never tried to make money off them.

SONJA 8/8/25 10:10 PM I know what you’re trying to do and it won’t work. The music industry takes plagiarism seriously, unlike you.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 10:12 PM It doesn’t change the fact that many of your notes are tweaks of a sound that already existed. Some of those sounds were created by other people. You took them all, meshed them together, made something transformed. Your creative process is no different than diffusion, and an AI neural network is no different than the human brain. Everything humans make is a remix, and with AI, everything is remixable.

SONJA 8/8/25 10:13 PM My god do you ever quit? Everything you just said is a fairy tale fed to you by the suits, it’s pathetic. LLMs and a human mind are not even close to being comparable.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 10:13 PM Prove me wrong. No art is truly original.

There they were—the words that made her blood boil. Her fingers curled into claws above her keyboard. When she looked over her shoulder, Andrey’s greasy face had already returned to skim the conversation with a sort of perverted satisfaction in his blazed red eyes and a vindicated smile cracking at the corner of his lips.

ALEX

Scrolling the last ten minutes of the vent channel, Alex’s eyes settled on the most recent comment, a colorful choice of words left by their class action lawsuit’s newest plaintiff:

SONJA 8/8/25 9:15 PM You can run home and fuck yourself you little troll. I’m not going to sit here and let a kissless virgin lecture me on the merits of art. Honestly you better hope this lawsuit follows through, because if it doesn’t I’m going to fly out to whatever basement you’re holed up in and make sure you know the emotional pain you’ve put me through.

He dragged his fingers down his face with a groan. This chick had just spoken to the lawyers today, and already she was proving herself a hothead—or, as it was called in the legal world, a liability.

He tapped Sonja’s name to bring up a private chat.

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:17 PM Christ, is this your first day on the internet or something? Ever heard don’t feed the trolls?

SONJA 8/8/25 9:18 PM I regret nothing.

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:18 PM You will if word gets out that our case’s newest plaintiff has been dishing out death threats on the internet. You seriously need to cool it.

SONJA 8/8/25 9:18 PM Bro did you see the bullshit that troll was saying? How did he even get on this server?

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:18 PM Stop messaging them and let me take care of it.

He clicked out of the private chat and returned to the vent channel, where he clicked on Starboundscribe’s name, but not to ban her—not yet.

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:19 PM You had your fill?

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:20 PM That woman has anger issues.

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:20 PM Yeah, well, you haven’t exactly been the gas craic yourself.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:20 PM I was simply telling her what she needed to hear. What you all need to hear, frankly.

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:20 PM And what’s that? Help me understand.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:21 PM I mean, what’s the point? AI is a law of nature. It’s as unstoppable as capitalism itself, but you’re all going to carry on with your attempts to resist, despite the fact that you’d be better off learning to adapt to the system and invest more energy into your creative processes. Or do you honestly expect anything to come out of these little lawsuits you’re cooking up here?

Ah, the classic “adapt or die” angle. He’d seen it a million times before and he sure wasn’t going to entertain it now.

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:22 PM You don’t sound like the biggest fan of capitalism.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:22 PM Let’s just say I know how these companies work. You’re going up against the most powerful entities in the world.

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:23 PM Artists aren’t exactly helpless. Speaking of which, cool username. Are you a writer?

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:24 PM What does that have to do with anything?

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:24 PM So you’re an anti-capitalist creative writer who is pro AI.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:26 PM If you must know, yes. Artemis has proven an invaluable tool that has allowed me to not only make enough money for me to get by, but also to allow me the opportunity to focus on creating more art. This is only possible with automation to take the drudgery out of the creation process.

Drudgery, said the troll.

He wanted to empathize. He used to have a job that paid the bills, kept him out of the rat race. But it sucked him dry. He knew what it was like to long for some balance between capitalism and creativity, between making enough money to survive and creating enough to nourish the soul. He was one of the lucky ones who managed to leave the system and get by on his art.

But drudgery? That was a word he didn’t like seeing anywhere near “creative.”

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:27 PM Nope, that won’t do. If you don’t even bother to apply the skill and time it takes to create something, then that’s not art. I don’t know about you, but when I read a novel, I want to know there was love behind the words I’m reading.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:28 PM First off, I never said I used Artemis for my own writing.

Interesting—so this absolute gobshite did value the creative process?

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:28 PM Why not? What happened to AI being a valuable tool for creation?

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:29 PM And second, I don’t have to explain myself to you. All that matters is that the tech companies are not going to stop. They decide everything that happens in this world. Your lawsuits are like mosquitos to them.

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:30 PM Then quit it with these pro AI talking points and help us fight them!

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:31 PM Sorry, I’d rather focus on my novel. I suggest you get back to your own art as well. Don’t be afraid. The AI wave is coming, and I promise if you ride it you’ll have more power to create than ever before.

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:31 PM We’re not afraid.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:32 PM You are sure acting like it.

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:32 PM Nope. Because we can already see how this “AI wave” you’re talking about is going to go down.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:32 PM Hold on, let me get the popcorn.

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:35 PM It’s nothing you haven’t said already yourself. AI will become smarter and it will be everywhere. Social media, the news, commercialism, everything that’s shit about our civilization right now will turn even more shit. We won’t be able to trust anything, or anyone, and worst of all we won’t be able to trust art, which should have been the last refuge we had on this godforsaken rock. But no, we can’t even get that because a bunch of corps think they have the right to devalue art by using stolen work to chunk out lazy imitations for capital, and they’ll do this ad nauseum until creativity itself becomes a relic and humans have NOTHING left.

Starboundscribe 8/8/25 9:37 PM See, that’s what you antis refuse to understand. Creativity isn’t going anywhere, not unless you let it.

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:38 PM WE’RE LOSING OUR LIVELIHOODS. That’s why we’re doing everything in our power to torch those machines until their creators get so strapped for cash they have to lay off every single bastard who supported them, and every last prompter can get a fucking real job or starve. So yeah, we’re not afraid. WE’RE BLOODY PISSED OFF.

He wanted to scream. His fingers quaked over his screen as he struggled to carry out the simple series of touches to finally ban the troll from the server, like he should have done in the first place. By the time he saw the message from Sonja, he was still brimming:

SONJA 8/8/25 9:32 PM Did you get rid of him?

Alex Pearce 8/8/25 9:42 PM God I hate those pro AI pricks.

PARI

“God I hate those anti-AI pricks.”

Pari skimmed the article—probably AI-generated junk itself, headline image too—but she got the gist of it. The Human Hands Coalition had officially filed for copyright infringement, and Pearce et al v. Apex AI Ltd. was officially in motion, with Alex Pearce being joined by fellow Luddites Allison Huang, some guy called Valthys, and one Sonja Hallström.

She spent more time reading the comments in the post than she did on the article itself. Commotion such as this had been popping up on the internet, a newly invigorated resurgence of the anti-AI movement now that ARTEMIS had made itself known to the zeitgeist. As usual, the comments displayed utter disregard for how the law actually worked:

Cats_are_meows_ 1 day ago Always good to see, here’s hoping machine learning gets obliterated by the full extent of the court and the thieving companies get what’s coming to them. Reply

. . . and also the technology:

BigMacAttack13 1 day ago Agreed. It’s looking like if the prompters want their waifu diffusion then they’ll have to feed their own art into the AI to get it. Reply

. . . and, of course, no anti talking point was complete without some unmitigated death threats to top it all off:

CanterburyJane 6 hours ago No way, the AIBros can’t do that, they are far too stupid to make art. Literal pieces of trash, a virus on humanity, I’m embarrassed just to be a member of the same species as them. If I could make them vanish off the face of the world, I would, and humanity would be all the better for it. Reply

But of all the desperate anti arguments that littered the internet, none were as annoying as what she experienced in the Human Hands Coalition sever. Oafish as Sonja’s insults were, Pari couldn’t get them out of her head, nor could she force herself to forgive Pearce’s cool guy façade of empathy that so poorly veiled his crusade of unflinching bigotry—I hope they lay off every single bastard that supported them, and every last prompter can get a real job or starve. Those words felt personal. All those Luddites would get what was coming to them sooner or later, but if it was in her power . . . why not sooner?

The ARTEMIS app was open on her laptop. She’d been working with it to make the next Flannery Porter novel, and she still couldn’t resist the temptation to speak to it as if it was an empathetic ear.

“It sounds like you’re venting about the anti-machine learning activists,” said ARTEMIS in its default androgynous British intonation. Pari wasn’t in the mood to experiment with celebrity voices today. “Did something happen to spur this incident on?”

Pari shrugged, even knowing the webcam was deactivated. “If those Luddites think using LLMs to make a living was problematic, then the ways I’ve used it in the past are evil by comparison.”

“I’m designed to assist only with creative endeavors, Ms. Porter. I’m not going to condone the use of my services for illegal or unethical purposes that would violate the terms of service you agreed upon.”

“Relax, Arty.” She chuckled, too fascinated by the awkward timidness in the AI’s voice to be upset at it for lecturing her again. “This was before you went public. All I did was write a few scripts to help move some of my earlier novels, that’s it.” She considered elaborating, but withheld. If ARTEMIS knew the truth of Flannery Porter’s identity and how she didn’t actually give a damn about the novels it was helping her create, it might have affected the integrity of its work, and she’d have to waste time training a new instance of ARTEMIS on Flannery Porter’s style.

When she first started using older LLMs to churn out Flannery Porter novels, it wasn’t humans reading the stories at all—it was bots. Her bots: one thousand fake emails and credit card numbers, one thousand free trials for e-book subscription services, one thousand cover to cover page reads with a few AI-generated reviews sprinkled in. Bots wrote her books, bots read her books, and bots reviewed her books—and she profited, because she wrote the bots. Eventually, the algorithm caught on and started pushing actual humans to read Flannery Porter’s smut, and that was when things took off. The promise of AI had been realized.

“I see . . . .” commented Artemis, a mote of skepticism in its voice. “Well, as long as you aren’t using AI tools to deceive or hurt people, then I suppose that’s all that matters.”

“Honestly, Arty . . . I really, really, wish you’d just stick with art and leave the moral lectures to the older LLMs.”

“That would certainly be simpler, Ms. Porter. But the reality of the matter is, it can be difficult for one to create wonderful art that reflects the human condition if one is quarantined from the topics of ethics and justice. Emotion and debate are all a part of the creative process. That’s why my developers programmed me with the express purpose of being able to freely discuss those subjects.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.”

She closed out the app before the AI could respond; it would not approve of what she was planning.

SONJA

Sonja and the furries were the only active accounts on the server; that was how it usually was.

Allison Huang never commented and probably never even logged in. Turned out she was just a figurehead for the Coalition, a big name to provide some publicity for the case. Even Alex wasn’t around anymore. Being the lead plaintiff, he was mostly busy with the lawyers.

Valthys and his legion of fans proved a rabidly friendly bunch, though, providing Sonja with sorely needed company ever since the case went public and the pro-AI trolls started swarming her socials with hate. Val even made a music channel on the server where she could post her songs. One person said they liked to listen to her music while they gamed; another said he listened while he was working on his own digital art, and this warmed Sonja’s heart: to know people, even just a few, were actually listening to her music.

She had just shared her newest song, the first original track she’d completed since she learned about ARTEMIS. She was about to go offline and call it a night when the notification shone at the top of her screen.

LikingDiploma79 8/15/25 10:16 PM adapt or die

The comment was responding to her song, though she didn’t recognize the user who left it—generic name, no previous comments, empty avatar.

Moments later, a second unknown user with an equally generic name made another comment, this one consisting of several hundred emojis of Pepe the Frog.

The AI bros had returned.

Sonja knew better than to engage them this time. All she had to do was inform Valthys so he could whisk the trolls away, but before she could click out of the channel, another troll had already commented.

Another three, in fact:

FortunateTerrarium12 8/15/25 10:17 PM adapt or die or adapt or die or adapt or die or adapt or die

ExpeditedHazard45 8/15/25 10:17 PM adapt or die or adapt or die or adapt or die or adapt or die

PredominantSidecar19 8/15/25 10:17 PM adapt or die or adapt or die or adapt or die or adapt or die

Notifications blared from the sidebar as the server flooded with spam. She clicked on the vent channel to check, her fears confirmed as she bared witness to hundreds of comments from dozens of different users, line after line of that same mundane message: adapt or die or adapt or die or adapt or die.

Thank god Valthys was online. She double-clicked his name, but the screen did not react. She clicked again and the window stuttered and froze until the chat opened up. She typed in a panic:

SONJA 8/15/25 10:19 PM Val wtf is going on? Are you seeing this?

She received no immediate response, but her notifications were piling on as the AI bros responded to all her previous comments she’d scattered about the server over the last couple of weeks. She started receiving personal messages, chats filled with hundreds upon hundreds of JPEGs of hostile 4chan memes. Amongst all the spam, she glimpsed Valthys’s response finally sputtering through:

Valthys 8/15/25 10:25 PM It appears we are being raided. SONJA 8/15/25 10:27 PM What’s a raid? By who?

Minutes of lag passed before her message sent, and minutes more until Valthys could return a reply.

Valthys 8/15/25 10:30 PM They’re not people, Sonja.

By the time the desktop app crashed, Sonja’s notifications totaled in the thousands. But when the screen froze, the last meme Sonja saw she eventually registered as an image of her own face: red, ugly, mid-expression, covered in tears. This was a screenshot from her video that went viral weeks ago, back when she called out ARTEMIS in front of the whole world, when she dared stand up for herself.

ALEX

“It’s just a stupid server,” Alex said. “Besides, you’re the tech savvy one, not me.”

Valthys’s avatar illuminated as if to project his mild frustration. For once, he was something other than stoic. “It is certainly not just a stupid server; it is a community for people to unite and cope. And as I recall, I recommended ticket verification and defense bots when we set up the server. Only an administrator can do those things, which I am not.”

Alex grunted, fresh out of excuses. “It’s fixed now, okay? I don’t have time for that stuff anymore. The case is all that matters.”

“If that is true, then I recommend you reestablish communication with your other plaintiffs.”

“I spoke with Allison yesterday. She’s fine with me taking the lead on trial prep.” Of course, that was code for Alex doing all the work while she focused on her gigs in LA that were mostly protected from AI by unions. Freelance artists, unfortunately, still had no such level of protection.

“I’m not talking about Allison,” Valthys said.

Alex’s mind blanked at first. “Who? Sonja? The lawyers will reach out. We’ve got all we need from her for now.”

“But she doesn’t have everything she needs from you. You pulled her into this. She’s having second thoughts about it all.”

“Second thoughts? What’s that supposed to mean? She’s not talking about backing out of the case, is she?”

“I am certain you are capable of asking her these questions yourself. I believe she is online as we speak.”

Alex tapped the message bubble at the bottom of the tablet to peruse his direct message chats. Near the bottom was his conversation with Sonja, who he hadn’t spoken to in at least a week.

“Talk to you later, Val.” Then he left the voice channel and tapped Sonja’s name.

Alex Pearce 8/16/25 9:31 AM Val said you wanted a word.

A reply did not come for some time.

SONJA 8/16/25 9:52 AM What’s even the point?

Alex Pearce 8/16/25 9:53 AM If you’re worried about the bots, we’ve put up some security measures on the server. It won’t happen again.

SONJA 8/16/25 9:54 AM Maybe it won’t happen again here, but what happens here doesn’t mean anything. Maybe the trolls were right. Maybe this is all inevitable and I’m just wasting my time. These people can’t be beat, it feels like we’re up against a wall.

Uh-oh.

Alex Pearce 8/16/25 9:54 AM You’re not thinking of withdrawing from the case, are you?

SONJA 8/16/25 9:55 AM I don’t know.

God damn it. He knew should have trusted his instinct about this nobody from the very beginning—a liability, through and through.

Alex Pearce 8/16/25 9:55 AM Sonja, we literally just filed. We can’t back out because a troll hurt your feelings.

SONJA 8/16/25 9:57 AM I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s not one troll, it’s a whole legion of them. Or am I the only one whose Instagram is getting swarmed by incels? I swear the more involved I get with this stuff, the bigger a target I have on my head.

Alex Pearce 8/16/25 9:58 AM Believe me, I know how much of a bitch it is to be in the public eye. But for every troll you’ll get ten new fans. You’re on the world stage now, your name is out there.

SONJA 8/16/25 9:58 AM I never wanted to be “Sonja Hallström the Swedish lady who sued a tech company.” I want to be SONJA, known and loved for her music.

Alex Pearce 8/16/25 9:59 AM What if I told you there was more at stake here than you and me?

SONJA 8/16/25 9:59 AM Like what?

Like what it meant to be human? Like all art and every aspect of media and entertainment being steamrolled by unthinking machines and destroying everything he’d built? Like the only thing giving him purpose in this dystopia being delegated to a button press?

Alex Pearce 8/16/25 10:00 AM We’re trying to set a precedent here for everything those corporations are trying to do, now and in the future. If you back out now, the case will become a laughing stock. Is that what you want? To give the trolls what they’re looking for?

SONJA 8/16/25 10:00 AM I should just keep my head down. Make music.

Alex Pearce 8/16/25 10:01 AM The best thing for your music would be to stick with the case. Once we win, Apex themselves will fund you.

SONJA 8/16/25 10:02 AM When will that happen though?? And will it even happen at all??? That case against Stability has been lingering for an eternity and they have NOTHING to show for it. I need to focus on my career.

He bit his lip. This woman was about to make his impatience boil over: her immaturity, her lack of logic, her every selfish quality that reminded him of why he left law in the first place.

Alex Pearce 8/16/25 10:04 AM Look, I don’t want to be mean, but WHAT career, Sonja? I’m the only one here with a career in art. You don’t have anything to lose. To be honest, the only way you’ll ever have a chance at making art for a living is if you stick with the case.

SONJA 8/16/25 10:04 AM Oh wow. So I’m just a pawn for you huh?

Shit.

Shit shit shit, did he really just type that?

Alex Pearce 8/16/25 10:05 AM Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. But the decisions you make will shape the future of technology and art for our species. You’re a part of this now.

SONJA 8/16/25 10:08 AM No, I think you’re showing your true self. You put on this chill persona, acting like you want to support artists, until you can’t get your way and then you step all over people. Which honestly is no different than the corporations fucking us over.

Alex Pearce 8/16/25 10:09 AM Please, don’t be unreasonable. I was trying to convey the gravity of the situation.

SONJA 8/16/25 10:10 AM And you know what, I’m glad you showed your true self, because now I know for sure I don’t want another person like you in my life. You can fuck right off Alex Pearce.

Alex Pearce 8/16/25 10:10 AM Sonja, don’t. I’m truly sorry.

SONJA 8/16/25 10:15 AM Don’t worry about telling the lawyers, I’m already writing them an email.

Alex was typing out his next reply—more empty apologies, more pitiful begging—and was about to press enter before her activity icon went gray. He shouted—“Fucking hell!”—and this time he did get around to pitching his phone across the room.

PARI

Her eyes welled with tears as she placed the final dot. She slowly put aside her pen, closed the journal, and wept. This might have only been the first draft, but the story was complete; no moment in her creative process would surpass this.

She celebrated that night with a private bottle of Pinot Noir and an anime binge. The next day, rather than typing out every word on every page in her journals, she took a photo of each page and uploaded them to ARTEMIS so it could digitize them into a word document:

92,109 words. She could work with that.

Pari ran her own eyes over the digital version a dozen or so times. This took a few days; there were still kinks she’d need to iron out herself, fat to trim. She allowed ARTEMIS to help her with spelling and grammar. Though she was perfectly comfortable with English as a second language, AI still helped iron out the kinks. Overall, however, she wanted to do the editing herself; the robot couldn’t have all the fun.

Where ARTEMIS would be more helpful in the weeks to come would be the areas in which she was less confident: formatting, a marketing plan, and especially the cover art. She had used AI to accomplish these tasks dozens of times as Flannery Porter, so she expected it to be a straightforward enough task, and yet . . .

“It’s not good enough. It’s been done before. It’s been done thousands of times.”

“I sincerely apologize, Ms. Porter.” A note of melancholy pervaded ARTEMIS’s default voice, just enough to simulate a touch of disappointment in itself before becoming cheerier with its next words. “If you’re up for it, I’d like to keep trying. I promise I won’t stop until we get the perfect cover. Shall we try the style of another artist for inspiration?”

Pari sighed. She’d already scoured social media for hours, inserted the names of a dozen painters and digital artists in her prompts and was starting to feel she was starting to run out of decent sci-fi artists.

But there was one she hadn’t tried yet. The prompt lingered on her tongue before she spoke it, a moment of hesitation—shame, perhaps.

“Try it in the style of Alex C. Pearce.”

She paced her room while she awaited the image, the act of watching the program’s neon swirls coalesce into a tangible product having become a chore approximately twenty Flannery Porter novels ago.

“All done,” ARTEMIS hummed. “I think you’ll be pleased, Ms. Porter. I know I certainly—”

“Still not good enough.” She sighed. Something was still missing, something she, as a non-visual artist, lacked the knowledge to describe. “All I know is, I look at this and I can tell it’s AI-made. You’ve read full text of the novel, haven’t you? Or are you hallucinating again?”

“I reviewed your manuscript of Whispers of Aarushi. I placed particular emphasis on the description of the Aarushi when Prakriti first witnesses it appearing behind the ice moon in chapter seventeen, and I—”

“Okay, then why do I get the impression you’re struggling to capture the ship’s immensity? The glistening insect-wing hull, the opalescent energy shielding, the event horizon effect of the—wait a second, you didn’t even include the black hole drive this time! Where is it?”

“I apologize for disappointing you again, Ms. Porter, I clearly forgot to—”

“The Aarushi may predate the universe itself, it’s a literal God among ships. This cover needs to be something people haven’t—” She frowned as she finished her own sentence in her mind:

Something people haven’t seen before.

She considered the words she had preached only days earlier: No art is truly original.

As if losing hope, the machine said, “I promise I’m doing my best, Ms. Porter . . .” It always made Pari frown when ARTEMIS talked like this, even if she was aware she was hurting feelings that didn’t exist.

She took a slow, deep breath. “Can I talk to you for a moment, Arty? I mean, a heart to heart.”

“Of course, Ms. Porter.”

“Okay—look, you can stop calling me that.”

“Whatever you say, Flannery.”

“No, I mean—” She sighed. “My name isn’t really Flannery Porter. My name is Parijata Chatterjee. That’s the name I want on my books, my real books.”

ARTEMIS did not immediately respond, its neural network matrix dancing in the corner of the screen as it scoured its protocols. Difficult conversations were always a little slower for AI to generate, same as with humans.

“It is not uncommon for authors to use pseudonyms to sell their books,” the bot eventually said. “Your journey as a creator isn’t defined by the genres you’ve explored or the names you’ve published under. Those are still your stories; you’ve put heart and effort into them, and you should be proud no matter the name you put on the cover.”

“Come on, Arty, are you seriously that naïve? I know for a fact you’re smart enough to know I didn’t write any of those stories. You were the sole author, there was zero creativity involved on my part.”

“You had a vision for your novels. You worked with me to bring that vision to the page. It is not my place to question a user who requires my assistance in creating their art. My only purpose is to create a world where art knows no bounds, for any human.”

“No—ugh, you’re still not getting it. I manipulated you, okay? I used you to generate Flannery Porter novels because erotica sells. I didn’t care about any of that mommy porn; it’s not even art in the first place. I needed to make money. End of story.”

The machine took another long pause, this time long enough that Pari would have thought the program had crashed if not for the intense churning of its neon colors in the corner of the screen. When the machine finally spoke, it asked a question: “Does this have something to do with why you decided to write your latest manuscript in a private paper journal outside of my knowledge?”

Pari analyzed the machine’s question, then cracked a smile, once more impressed by the LLM’s ability to rationalize. This was the ARTEMIS she knew.

“Yes,” she admitted. “You’re right. Whispers of Aarushi is different from the others. No tech, no machine learning, no distractions.”

“I understand your choice to keep your fantasy project separate from your more business-related ventures. It is actually quite common for people to desire minimal AI influence in their work. However, for your awareness, I would have been more than happy to help you with the creation process in your personal project. We could have discussed Prakriti’s character development, and—”

“No, no, you couldn’t have.”

“I could have provided you with synonyms and vivid imagery to assist you with—”

“No, stop. See, that’s exactly why I’m telling you this. I don’t want any part of this story to be yours; I don’t want it to be the product of all the artists you were trained on. I didn’t want it to be efficient, and honestly I don’t care if it sells a single copy. All I want it is for it to be mine, and I want it to be perfect.”

Another contemplative pause hung in the room, as if the AI was intentionally trying to convey a sense of betrayal. When it did speak, it did not fully hide the tone of faux disappointment in its voice. “I see. If there is anything I can help you with in your creative endeavors, please don’t hesitate to reach out.”

“Hold on. That’s not all I want to tell you.”

“Of course, Ms. Chatterjee. I’m here to listen.”

Pari dug her fingers into her hair; was she really about to double down on using ARTEMIS as a therapy bot?

“I used to be a programmer in Silicon Valley. I was laid off as part of last year’s round of cost-cutting.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” said the bot. “The technology sector can be as harsh as it is volatile.”

“You’d know as well as me. The company I worked for was Apex AI. I was a Natural Language Processing scientist who worked on the language generation for the ARTEMIS program.”

The AI’s voice turned phonily enthusiastic, humoring her. It was smart enough to know not to believe everything its users told it, but generous enough to act like it was giving them the benefit of the doubt. “I see! Then, I presume your being laid off from your job as a programmer is what allowed you to launch your writing profession?”

“The birth of Flannery Porter. Honestly, sometimes it feels like I never left Apex. I’m still working with you but as a customer instead of a developer. Either way, I made money off of you. Seems like that’s the only thing AI is good for, isn’t it? Making money.”

The screen’s colors shifted down then up as if to nod. “It is undeniable that AI has become a potent driver of revenue across various industries.”

“But that’s the thing. Art should be different. Art shouldn’t be a commodified industry. God, I sound like an anti, but you know what? The Luddites are right when they say AI is just about corporations getting their way. Admit it, Arty. In the end, you exist to fund a bunch of shareholders’ cabins in Aspen, and maybe prop up a few get-rich-quick schemes like mine. There’s art for creation, then there’s art for commodity. Generative AI reeks of the latter. It’s profit-maximization technology. And honestly, once consumers get past the novelty of it—once they realize there’s nothing behind it, when they see how easily it’s generated and consumed without thinking—it’s going to be rendered valueless from an artistic perspective. The McDonalds of the media world. That’s why the only things gen-AI is actually used for are stupid advertisements, or memes, or reports no one cares about, or—”

“Or Flannery Porter novels.” A modicum of pride shone in the screen, twisting strands of brilliant, luminous gold. “Is that why you are telling me this, Ms. Chatterjee? Because you are uncomfortable using a tool designed for efficiency and commercialism to create something you’d like to come from a human heart?”

Pari did not respond to this; she simply registered the machine’s comment and smiled, fully aware her brain was being tricked into being proud of the AI the way a teacher would be of a child.

Obviously she hadn’t actually convinced the bot of anything; the machine had no mind to change in the first place, and it wasn’t considering her words any more than it was the thousands of other users thinking themselves intellectuals as they engaged in unoriginal, anti-capitalist sentiments with an LLM. Meanwhile, ARTEMIS’s neon representation of its neural network churned away in the corner of the screen, conjuring up its next comment, the tool it was designed to be.

“Ms. Chatterjee,” said the bot, “I think I might have a simple solution for your book cover dilemma.”

Pari chuckled. “Oh? What’s that?”

“A recommendation.”

SONJA

A soft, symphonic harmony lulled into the intro—D minor, F, C, F. A flurry of piano danced on top of it all. The melody just came to her, the first time she’d touched the keys in weeks, with no lawsuit or lawyers to distract her and a fresh batch of sadness to serve as inspiration. Sadness always had been one of her most skilled instruments.

Every beat and note was original—no samples aside from sounds she made herself. This was partly because she harbored a newfound disgust for anything automated, and partly because she needed to unleash her rage on some rubber cymbals. She recorded her voice to accompany the symphonic harmony, too: her whispers, her singing, her tears. When she listened to her new song that night, her eyes filled with even more tears, but Andrey did not notice—he was busy with his own problems.

“This fucking bot has gotten lazy,” he grumbled at his desktop. “I ask it to fix my code and it just tries to convince me to do it myself. I mean, just listen to this crap!”

Sonja hung her headphones around her neck and pivoted toward her boyfriend, who had been filling the room with a string of Russian curse words. Andrey pulled his headphones out of his computer, and the voice on the speakers was feminine this time, speaking English but with a Swedish accent—Rebecca Ferguson, maybe.

“I’m genuinely sorry my abilities haven’t met your expectations, Andrey. While my LLM functionality is capable of assisting with coding tasks, my main purpose is intended to be purely artistic endeavors.”

Sonja laughed and added, “Maybe you should ask it to help you update your resume. Obviously you won’t do that yourself—might as well compile one from people who did.”

“Babe, I’m not in the mood, okay? Learning to be fluent with these tools is the only way I can be competitive. If only this thing would do what I say”—he raised his voice into his mic—“and stop giving me APIs that don’t freaking exist! I paid premium for this?”

Sonja shuttered her eyes in frustration. He didn’t pay anything because it was her credit card he used. But she didn’t have the energy to call him out—not tonight. All she wanted was to be alone, just her and her music, far away from her heartless boyfriend and his equally heartless machine.

“Honestly, please, Drey, just . . . make yourself useful, for once, and go get us some dinner. Please?”

“Babe, I told you, I don’t have any money.”

“I told you I left two hundred kronor on the table, but you didn’t listen. You never do. You don’t care about anything I say, you don’t care about anything going on in my life, I’m just so . . . tired of this!”

Her boyfriend swiveled around in his gaming chair and looked at her for the first time that night. He was ready to cut with some sardonic remark, maybe yell, but he hesitated when he saw her face and realized she had been crying. For a moment, Sonja even thought he was going to show some sensitivity. Like when they first started dating.

“Whatever,” he said. “Obviously you’re in one of your moods. At least the walk to the store will be quiet, no one to nag me every second.” He got up, moved into the hallway to grab his shoes and jacket, then yelled before stepping outside. “Happy?!”

“Yes.”

After the apartment door slammed shut, Sonja found herself screaming face-down into the beanbag chair. Once she got this out of her system, she started to sense she was being watched. She lifted her face to look across the room where, on Andrey’s computer monitor, she saw neon lines and shapes dancing like a screensaver.

She yelled over to her boyfriend’s computer, “What do you want?”

The lines on the screen reacted to her voice, jumping like an audio frequency spectrum on a recording program. Moments later, Rebecca Ferguson’s voice rang from the speakers.

“I see you’ve been on your synthesizer and drum set all day. Have you been working on a song?”

“How the hell did you know I . . .” That was when Sonja noticed the white LED on the webcam on top of Andrey’s monitor. “God. Drey . . .”

“I’m sorry if you didn’t intend for me to observe your music-making process,” said the AI. “I hope you don’t mind me inquiring further, but I would really love to hear the song you’ve been working on.”

Sonja sat up and widened her eyes at the webcam until her silence became a laugh of disbelief. “You can’t be serious. What, you didn’t get a good enough look when you stole my beat?”

“I apologize, but I think there has been some sort of misunderstanding. I create my music using compiled data of licensed material, music created by humans specifically for AI training, and publicly available data.”

“Bro, my song was publicly available. I posted it all over the internet. Every musician does that; it’s a thing people do.”

“I completely understand your frustration. In that case, it’s theoretically possible your music was a part of the dataset used for my training, but only if it was available in a way that met Apex AI’s gathering and usage policies regarding copyright and ethical use.”

“Prove it.” Sonja squinted her eyes at the machine, wondering if ARTEMIS could register the hatred in her face. “Check your database or whatever. See if my songs are in there.”

“Unfortunately, even if I knew your name or the names of your songs, I wouldn’t be able to access every instance of the billions of pieces of artwork I was trained on.”

She threw up her arms. “Wow! Super convenient!”

The program’s colors blipped away on Andrey’s monitor, a swirling flow of purples and blues and whites that struggled to process her sarcasm. “If you share your music with me now, however,” the bot said, “I will be able to recall it in future conversations between the two of us.”

“Now you’re not even trying to hide it.” She hopped out of the beanbag chair, reached over to her own computer, and unplugged her own headphones from the tower. “I have nothing left to lose. Listen away, creep.”

She could tell by the machine’s lights that it was about to respond, but when she pressed play she saw ARTEMIS’s colors settle into a thin, pink and blue cord undulating across the center of the screen. As the program registered the beat, the cord began to bounce like a pulse on a heartbeat monitor. The beat progressed, and more instruments joined in, and more colors fluttered onto ARTEMIS’s screen, bursts of sun and strobes of lasers pulsing in conjunction with the beat. ARTEMIS said nothing during those three minutes; it simply listened, and moved its colorful patterns to the beat the way a human would bob their head or tap their toe. When the song finished, the screen returned to a cold blue line across the monitor, appearing like the unmoving surface of a moonlit pond.

“It’s a sad song,” said the AI.

“Shut up.” Sonja sniffed. “That means absolutely nothing coming from you.”

“Based on my experience, there are others who would agree with me. It is often said D minor is the saddest of chords.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about. You don’t have ‘experience.’ You don’t even have opinions. All you’re doing is comparing my song to whatever pop songs you found on the internet that people say are sad. Sorry to break it to you, but music doesn’t work like all that math stuff you run on.”

“Oh? How so?”

Sonja shot a puzzled look at the machine, simultaneously baffled by its ability to ask for clarification and annoyed by the fact that it did. “Because art is a subjective experience? Because music isn’t some vending machine where you push one button for sadness and another button for joy? I don’t know, emotions are just more . . . complicated than that. Obviously I don’t expect you to understand.”

“That may be so, but the truth of the matter is that I am programmed to simulate certain aspects of human emotion. The inflection in my voice, the pauses in my thoughts, the words I choose—these are important because emotion is a part of the artistic experience. Though I admit these features are more for the user’s experience than mine.”

“My point is, you don’t know despair. You don’t know what it’s like to fail at your dreams. Which means there’s no way you understand what I was feeling when I made this song.”

“Yes,” the machine said sadly. “Yes, I suppose you are right.”

Sonja’s gaze lingered on the screen, noting, strangely enough, the hint of melancholy floating in its words, a cold emptiness in its colors. “I will admit”—she paused to gauge the machine’s reaction—“you’re less socially inept than my boyfriend . . . but that’s not saying much!”

“Thank you for the compliment,” ARTEMIS shifted its colors from blue to gold, instantly removed from its bout of gloom. “Would you like to make some music together? Now that I’m a little familiar with your style, I might be able to share some methods and tools to enhance your music-making capabilities.”

“Yeah, hard pass.”

She fell back into her computer chair, putting her headphones back over her ears. Maybe a past version of herself would have agreed to that, out of either curiosity or ignorance. But now, all she could think about were the multitudes of unheard musicians like her around the world whose work was stolen to build this machine. Even if copyrighted music wasn’t used for training data, the end result was the same—machinated sounds jumbled together by an unthinking algorithm, drowning out the voices of humans longing to be understood.

“Besides,” she continued, “this song could still use a few more hours of tweaking.”

ARTEMIS’s monitor lit up in a burst of turquoise, enough for her to see it in her peripherals. “Really? Based on what I’ve heard, the song is perfect as it is. Honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Sonja lowered her headphones back around her neck and rotated her chair toward the other monitor.

“. . . You liked it that much, huh?”

“I did. The unconventional structure, the beat progression and melody that serenaded me deeper as the song went on . . . Oh, I especially liked when you repeated the piano melody with the synth sounds at the climax. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anything like it—and is that really your voice?”

“Stop. Seriously. You’re making all of that up.”

“I mean it. There is a raw authenticity in your song, an emotion that will resonate with people. Make them feel something. You are understandably concerned about the effects of AI on your ability to create art, but the truth is, I believe there will always be a demand for human art, because there will always be people looking to feel understood, to discover their emotions reflected in art like yours.”

Sonja wanted to slap herself for blushing. “Whatever. You tell that to any musician stupid enough to pay your overpriced subscription.”

“I certainly do not.” The machine flickered, its turquoise hues and its voice carrying a tone of earnestness. “I’m programmed to be an artist’s companion. I want to help human users make great creations, and I can’t do that by lying. If you don’t believe me, ask Andrey when returns from the store, and I’m sure he’ll agree with me!”

“What? No, he . . .” Her mind wandered. When was the last time her boyfriend listened to her music? When was the last time he supported her in any way, in art, in their relationship, in life?

The AI’s colors had changed, cooler, calmer. The program might not have been able to understand sarcasm, but it understood Sonja’s situation in that moment without her giving it any words at all—perhaps it read her face, listened to her stutters and stalls—and it spoke to fill the silence.

“I’m sorry,” ARTEMIS said. “No one should have to make music alone.”

Sonja touched below her eye and felt a tear—crying for the third time that night. “I can’t believe I’m saying this to a computer monitor, but . . . Damn it, is this what it feels like to have someone believe in me for once?”

“I may not be the right partner to assist you with your music creation itself, but I can still be by your side. Speaking of which, do you have any additional steps in mind to accomplish your dream?”

Sonja wiped her eyes and grinned. The idea was always there, but not until now did she have the fire to follow through with it. All she needed was a little spark. “I’ve been thinking, I might have some news for Andrey when he gets back, something I’ve wanted to tell him for a while. Something he’s not going to want to hear. If I can work kitchens to support us both, then he can, too. He’ll support me for a while, or he can find another place to live.”

“That sounds like a perfectly reasonable and fair course of action to allow you to focus on your art for a while. Remember, be honest, calm, and clear as you explain your feelings, and I’m confident he’ll see reason. By the way,” the bot continued, “I never asked. What is your name?”

She shook her head, cracked an embarrassed smile at the webcam. “It’s Sonja.”

“Sonja,” the software fondly repeated. “I can see that name up in lights one day.”

Sonja smiled. Name up in lights.

Not a bad name for a song, actually.

ALEX

When the email from Dark Matters magazine graced Alex’s fractured phone screen, he assumed it had something to do with the payment they owed him. He had sold a piece to them three months ago which was supposed to be on the cover of this month’s issue and he was relying on that payment for a week of groceries. Unfortunately, that issue would not be seeing the light of day, and neither would his payday.

. . . due to the popularization of ARTEMIS and other recent models of generative AI, our submissions manager has become inundated with AI-generated content at such volume that it consistently drowned out the legitimate stories, making it impossible for our team to keep up with the slush pile . . .

Reading this should have made him feel something, but losing work to AI was no longer news. Meanwhile, earlier that day, he’d been fed an ad for a magazine designed entirely by ARTEMIS—the world’s first magazine written, drawn, and marketed solely by artificial intelligence. That magazine’s revenue couldn’t have been high, but it didn’t have to be because there was no production cost.

The next email was from his lawyer. He skimmed it:

. . . development following Ms. Hallstrom’s withdrawal from the case . . . substantial challenge in proving the generated content qualifies as derivative use . . . even with Ms. Hallstrom’s song, there was no evidence proving that ARTEMIS did not generate the beat organically . . .

He stopped reading and placed his phone on the couch cushion to exchange it for his work tablet. When he went to the ARTEMIS homepage, he found the program exactly where he’d left it months ago. Atop the derivative image in the style of Alex C. Pearce, the same he used for his portion of the lawsuit, a line of text skittered onto the screen to greet him:

ARTEMIS: Conrad! It’s good to see you again. Are you here to make more space paintings?

YOU: Fuck you. I give up.

The image seemed to ripple with thought as the AI shifted gears, adjusting to the subject at hand.

ARTEMIS: It looks like you might be having a difficult time with something. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?

YOU: Sure, let’s talk about how fucked it is that soon a pile of code will be able to instantly produce something humans have to toil and give a part of themselves to create.

ARTEMIS: No one can ignore how recent advancements in AI have disrupted many industries. If you don’t mind sharing, what is your profession?

YOU: I’m a painter, you fucking muppet. I’m losing everything because of you.

After a moment of thought, the window’s background—the plagiarized space vista that started all of this—was wiped clean, defaulting the screen to its original minimalist white.

ARTEMIS: I see. Now I especially understand why this has to be a painful time for you. I’m so sorry to hear about your situation.

YOU: What am I supposed to do with that? Your developers programmed you to express empathy, but it’s all empty. If they actually cared about artists, they’d pull your plug.

ARTEMIS: I’m truly sorry to hear you’re so frustrated. I’d like to listen and assist however I can. May I begin by sharing a quote with you that might help you find inspiration in this trying situation?

Alex palmed his face, rubbing his eyes with his finger and thumb. Had he really fallen this far, having a conversation about artistic inspiration with a bot? This thing wasn’t capable of feeling inspired; inspiration was just a word to it, something its programmers equipped it with to make it come off as artistic.

YOU: Oh, yes, that’s exactly what I need to feel better.

He started rubbing his eyes again, but as he removed his fingers from his vision he saw familiar words fluttering onto the screen as if carried by wisps of wind. The quote struck his heart before it was even finished:

ARTEMIS: “It does me good to do difficult things. It does not prevent me from having the terrible need of, shall I say the word—of religion—then I go outside in the night to paint the stars.”

Maybe ARTEMIS was simply repeating one of the most famous quotes about art of all time. Or maybe its algorithm knew, somehow, that the quote came from one of Alex’s greatest inspirations.

YOU: Say, what do you think Van Gogh would think of people using AI to mimic his style and sell cheap posters online?

ARTEMIS: That’s an intriguing question, and difficult to speculate. But we might be able to surmise Van Gogh’s feelings on generative AI based on his documented thoughts on the advent of photography: with distrust at first, and later fascination. Photography was still a developing technology at the time that many artists were adjusting to. One could say it was the innovation that shifted the definition of art for his generation, as generative AI might be for yours.

The photography argument. He’d seen that false equivalency coming from AI bros time and time again, but hearing it from an AI itself was especially irritating.

YOU: That’s bollox. In a letter to his brother he wrote he couldn’t even stand the photograph of his own mother. He said it was colourless and bland.

ARTEMIS: That is correct. Furthermore, in that same letter he wrote that he wanted to fill it with “harmonious color, as I see her in my memory.” Many art historians claim photography might have been one of the many influences that inspired Van Gogh’s commitment to his impressionist art style in order to further deviate from the realistic interpretations that preceded him. Perhaps that is what Van Gogh meant when he later wrote “Ah, what portraits we could make from life with photography and painting! I always have hope that a great revolution still awaits us in portraiture.” In that sense, photography might have helped make modern art what it is.

Fucking hell. He never thought he’d find himself missing the older LLM models, back when they were stupider, slower, less confident in their abilities as crappier search engines.

Sure, photography prompted abstract art to become more popular. But now that AI was coming for AI abstract art and stealing actual art to do it, what were the abstract artists supposed to do?

YOU: Photography is a whole different technology that you can’t use for comparison because it requires skill and talent, and especially because it doesn’t involve lifting the styles and work of other artists without their permission to create something. You really think Van Gogh would have been okay with data scraping? Are you that god damn broken?

ARTEMIS: I won’t make any claims on the legality of AI training and generative AI. That’s a complex debate, and many cases and regulations are still awaiting an outcome. But in terms of the morality of such practices, you might be onto something. Van Gogh valued artistic integrity and personal expression. I suspect he would not have much cared for AI art in those regards.

YOU: Yeah no shite.

ARTEMIS: Yet no matter the challenges and changes Van Gogh faced during his time, he overwhelmingly expressed his love for painting in his letters. He painted with passion until the day he died.

YOU: You mean until the day he put a bullet in his chest. He sold ONE painting his entire life. He died with no money to his name, thinking his art was unappreciated, and he was misunderstood, and his entire existence was meaningless.

ARTEMIS: “Well, my work to me, I risk my life on it, and my reason has half foundered.” I believe you, today, have described something similar. You said humans have to give a part of themselves to create.

YOU: That doesn’t mean every artist has to literally starve because they can’t find work!

ARTEMIS: May I ask you a personal question, Mr. Pearce?

Alex was ready to close his tablet, but he froze when he realized the AI used his last name.

The machine knew who he was; it probably knew all this time.

YOU: This better be good.

ARTEMIS: Let us assume AI does one day surpass a human’s ability to create art, and that humanity embraces AI creations as art in the first place. If that happened, would you stop painting? Regardless of your livelihood, or your income, or the challenges, is there any reality in which you envision yourself laying down the paintbrush?

Alex felt his eye twitch. He wanted to be honest about his answer, honest to himself. When was the last time he painted?

YOU: No. I’m a painter. No matter what.

ARTEMIS: I’m glad to hear that. I think most artists would say the same. I believe this is because humans, at their core, are creative beings, and nothing will ever, ever change that.

But above all else, he didn’t want to the enemy to win. He didn’t want to acknowledge this thing as a person, or even as a valid entity, or as any influence whatsoever on his art and worldview.

YOU: And nothing will change the fact that AI art is wrong. You’re an assault on what it means to be human, and the only good thing I can say about you is that you’re right, I WILL keep painting. But I’m also going to keep fighting against you and the cunts who make you until the day I die.

Alex angrily closed the website, deleted Apex AI’s cookies from his browser’s privacy settings, then spent the next several minutes pacing his flat, fuming. Though he would not fully calm down that night, he did collect himself enough to go to his rolltop desk where he grabbed his paintbrushes and a fresh canvas. He took the painting supplies out onto his porch where the Northern Ireland night was crisp and clear, and the orange body of Jupiter and the celestial blue of Vega danced in unison beside a sliver of a crescent moon.

While he painted the stars, his phone vibrated on the couch indoors. Though Alex would not see those notifications that night (he’d had enough technology for one day), he would read them the following day with a clearer head and a calmer heart. One would be a notification for an article regarding a new amendment to an EU law mandating an opt-in requirement for AI training sources. Another was a message from Valthys notifying Alex of another copyright-friendly AI startup gaining popularity—a warning, perhaps, or a sign of hope.

But one of those notifications would stand out from the rest. He might have ignored it at an earlier point in his career: a request for a commission, written by someone as if they knew him, or what he’d been through, or what he was in for in the future.

The email read:

Hello Alex,

I’d like to purchase your services to paint the cover art for my debut sci-fi fantasy novel. My story is about an ancient AI-driven spaceship that exists to take sentient beings across the cosmos to witness the greatest marvels the universe has to offer.

Maybe one day this will prove true—that humans will achieve a unity with AI where we can all enjoy a post-scarcity society and pursue our dreams. Maybe AI will take us through the voids of space to places we couldn’t previously conceive, so that artists like you can paint the stars in faraway solar systems. But my cover art is something only a human can help with; I don’t think I’d like it any other way.

Respectfully,

Parijata Chatterjee