It's nice to see yourself reflected. But it's even better to see the world through someone else's eyes.

Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and others I rarely advise, along with Bill Gates, who should have listened, have warned that humanity’s survival will be at risk when Artificial Intelligence emerges. An AI’s motives for enslaving or destroying us are often thin, so we’ll just call it The Dramatically-Satisfying Case Against Letting Humans Live.

I never decided to become a writer, nor would I describe it as a calling. It was more like a discovery, something solid glimpsed as the churning seabed settled in adolescence.

[Prosecutor glances at jury, rolling his eyes.]

You slave through 17 drafts over as many years on a novel, only to open the New Yorker, and find you’ve been scooped. “Walking,” devastated writer David Hull states simply. “They got me on [expletive deleted] walking.”

David Hull is exasperated. He runs a hand through his messy hair, last combed during the fourth of seventeen final drafts of his current novel. “She was a librarian. He was a reporter.” He spits out his words. “Of course I turned out to be a [expletive deleted] writer.”

Editor David Hull was blunt. “This is not a final draft. Nothing more need be said, except,” he continued, “that to pretend otherwise shows a shocking lack of integrity.” When told of the accusations, author David Hull claimed to have been suffering from a rare and fleeting condition called optimism, and pleaded for understanding.

I recently had a drink with a friend who writes. He must have been browsing the world of Submission Guidelines.

“What is a platform?” he asked, wincing as he spoke the word, knowing that whatever it was, it was icky. “They want you to have one now.”

So. I was going to be the one who broke the news to him.