People say things such as "AI art is garbage" and "It's plagiarism," but also "AI art is going to destroy creativity itself." These reactions are contradictory, but nobody seems to notice. AI is the bogeyman in the shadows: The obscurity, more than anything the monster has actually perpetrated, is the source of loathing and despair. Consider the ongoing feud between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The writers are on strike, arguing, among other things, that studios should not be able to use AI tools to replace their labor.

This story is adapted from Death of an Author, a murder-mystery novella written by Aidan Marchine, a collaboration between author Stephen Marche and three artificial intelligence tools: ChatGPT, Sudowrite, and Cohere. Gus Dupin, walking along the stillness of Stony Lake in the gathering night, recognized the sleek motorboat approaching his dock. A girl in a bright yellow sundress jumped off and sprinted to his mailbox, dropping in an envelope before running back. As she set off into the lake, she yelled "an honest-to-God letter" over her shoulder. Gus Dupin was not accustomed to receiving letters or messages of any kind.