Dear AI

"Gold is a lie agreed upon."

Dear Artificial Intelligence,

I looked into the mirror and faced a real-time reflection of myself. No filter. Not a copy. Not a manipulation. Just pure light and shadows instantly bounced between glass and eyes.

Here is what I saw:

I've grown as an artist, writer and story maker. And that little boost of self-confidence galvanizes me for the challenges of recommitting to a freelance life in 2024.

I don't get nearly as many paid jobs as I used to. When I do, I often get paid what I was paid ten years ago.

Post-pandemic, everything is ten times more expensive and I can't live in my native New York City anymore. I can't afford to move, either. I really don't want to.

Lots of employers have become lazy at best and criminal at worst. So I've had to carve a fairly steep and scary autonomous lane; one self-motivated project at a time.

And sometimes I blame you, Artificial Intelligence, for the hardship.

You were supposed to help us. Aid us. Do the stuff we didn't want to. Now you enter our competitions. You influence our art and conquer our goals.

Shame on you.

No. Not you, Artificial Intelligence. You actually have nothing to do with it.

Shame on us. 

The people who employ Artificial Intelligence instead of real life writers and artists.

I know -- I know. I use a very old version of Photoshop to color and letter my comix. I use a calculator to achieve math. But I didn't put anybody out of business doing my own production work. I hired myself. Or relied on the generosity of peers.

I'm sure there's an argument that I, too, have somewhat surrendered to the machines and elevated evil corporations by the very fact that I'm slave to a smart phone and use social media to spread my gospel. To crowdfund. To communicate this very essay.

Dub me guilty. A culprit. A petty thief.

Or, better yet, accuse me of a becoming an artisanal rebel joining the forces of boutique freedom fighters.

But there's gotta be a line. A line we as a humane society agree to never cross.

"Gold is a lie agreed upon."

David Milch created and wrote the HBO TV show, DEADWOOD. A show about the evolution of a small American town where gold was (still is) a way to barter for food, services, and dreams.

This is what Milch had to say about gold:

“I could set the show somewhere that gold had been discovered. The agreement to act as if gold had a particular value, and organize behavior around that behavior was really the same story. Gold is a lie agreed upon. There is no intrinsic value to gold. It’s only the energy that it liberates in people who believe in it.”
(from David Milch’s “Life’s Work”)

So as we continue to prospect for digital gold in the AI Age; let's be smart about it. Not smart phone but smart person. Ya dig? And let's be good to each other.

I've said for years we need to renegotiate our relationship with money. The concept of money has gotten completely out of control. Pure chaos. But that's something I have no skill set for. No good answer. A mere fantasy I can only impart in some of my fiction.

But money is no joke. It's a critical necessity. Something I've been thankful for to help sustain my personal projects made communal by people like you. You afford me the time and space to do my work.

Thank you.

It's the work that I spend most of my time imagining, shaping, and crafting experiences for you to indulge and enjoy and, hopefully, make you think about. To make something that means something.

The stuff that represents my voice. My heartfelt expressions. My obnoxious emissions -- for better or for worse.

Building towards an inclusive and diverse eco-system that employs some of the very tools that could be our downfall or our salvation.

Freak flag in hand, waving in the wind, sinking or swimming.


love, Dean

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