A Cunning Plan

I've been itching, O reader, to bring new vigor to the newspaper, but Bernice has tied my hands, as far as payroll goes. (And as far as rope goes, too.) Yet I ask you, have I ever been daunted? Here's my thinking: Perhaps I can't hire new reporters, but that doesn't mean I can't add new bylines. From what I hear, creative writers are more easily exploited. So. I'm envisioning a Casual-Observer Sunday Magazine, a special feature we'd only publish on Sundays, that we could stuff with all these New Yorkery snoozers that arrive at my desk au gratis. Short fiction, poetry, dubious personal essays—I have piles of that shit.

But you can't launch a magazine without a flashy lead. Ideally, I'd blow the lid off some juicy Hollywood gossip, but, as I may have mentioned, I'm not as integrated with the A-List as I'd like to be. The gossip I know is decidedly desiccated. Several people have suggested I launch the magazine with an AI feature, and have GPT4 write a story, for example. I like that plan, though I'd have to move quickly, before other writers get the same idea. The trouble is, those AI toys cost money. And the second trouble is I'd have to figure out how to use them. I run a newspaper for a reason: I'm an analog man.

What the world really needs is an analog AI. I should find a way to generate first-rate gobbeldygook, without resorting to server farms, flops per cycle, all that digital nonsense. And it needs to be free. ChatCheapyT, I could call it. T, for tycoon, obviously. [Publisher rubs beard]

I have an idea emerging—