GTAI: The new GTA game that makes heavy use of AI

Submitted to McSweeney's Internet Tendency on January 19, 2024 - Rejected

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Welcome to GTAI, the new GTA game that makes heavy use of AI, thus cleverly named GTAI.

In this latest instalment of the game, the player is replaced by an AI. This means that instead of having to shoot prostitutes yourself, you can watch an AI do it for you.

You can make the clever computer do all the things you suck at, like find a car without alerting the police, find a suitable radio station, and go on a killing spree in an area with lots of pedestrians.

Ever wondered why you should be the one talking to all those drug lords and other assorted scum of the earth? GTAI has got you covered. Just sit back and relax while the AI does the work for you.

Are you the kind of person who likes to drive aimlessly around Vice City without following the story? Say no more. With GTAI-Cruisebot we have built just the thing. Put your illegally obtained pickup truck in CRUISE mode and let the bots take over.

Thanks to our top-notch artificial first-person playbot, you can just watch or even tend to your phone while our equally artificial whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick and venal are taught a lesson they won't forget.

You can even leave your gaming chair and go for a walk or prepare a meal with GTAI running in the background. For a small fee, we can even run your game as a service on our servers, so you don't even need a computer to excel in the latest entry in our beloved franchise.

Just sign up to our TOTAL GAAS (Gaming As A Service) cloud model and you can be sure that we will have AIs playing all of our games for you as soon as they are released, without any input from you at all!

Would you like to bask in the knowledge that you can always (auto-) play the latest add-ons and mission packs without having to go through the arduous task of actually buying, installing and launching the titles?

Leave it to the AI and start right now by purchasing GTAI. We will start playing the game for you as soon as we receive your payment. For you this means zero screen time. No more lying to your loved ones about "staying late at work". The ultimate relief from all the mindless killing and other morally dubious behaviour that weighs on your soul when you play our games.

You can thank us later. Now go ahead and place your order and we will give you a whole new AIxperience in AI-based gaming.

PS: Are you aware of the unbelievably high carbon footprint caused by running your games on our servers? We now offer an even better deal for those of you who want to play responsibly: Buy our TOTAL GAAS ECO package and rest assured that you are not contributing to the destruction of our planet. With T.G.E. we will tell you that we played for you and how you did in the game, but we actually turned off the servers and gave you a unique AI-generated summary of the gameplay. What better way to feel like a real gamer!

THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD - A critical reading of William Butler Yeats’ famous poem updated with contemporary commentary.

Submitted to McSweeney's Internet Tendency on October 26, 2023 - Rejected 

(This was 3 months before this brilliant piece appeared there so maybe they already had this on the radar and I was just too late. Or, like, mine was shit compared to the other one. You never know.)

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Turning and turning in the widening gyre

• Did you just call me fat?

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

• I can hear you alright and I have chosen to ignore your comments about my waist.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

• Yeah, maybe I’m not as slim as I used to be, but what you’re doing here is called body shaming and it’s not okay..

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

• It’s not called anarchy, it’s called body positivity!

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

• Hey, I am completely innocent of stuffing my face with conveniently available, highly processed garbage for the third time this morning. I am just bored to death with this fucking meeting. And how is two or three glasses of fine wine a day/meal a “tide”? This is straight up gaslighting.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

• Not sure what to make of this. Sure, I'm not "the best" at trying to avoid any kind of sweets I see lying around, but that's just because it's really hard in this environment. The kids seem to be deliberately setting up traps now. Like, why is there a half-eaten Snickers bar in the Kleenex drawer? Of course, I discovered it at the worst moment of my day, when I was at my weakest, and it disappeared down my cakehole before I fully understood what was happening. Am I full of passionate intensity? Absolutely! Especially when it comes to sneaking into the next room to passionately stuff as many Pringles in my face as possible. I'm also passionate about staring out the window when I hear someone behind me, giving the intruder the impression that I'm contemplating nature or some shit like that, while trying to breathe through my nose with the equivalent of a full meal's worth of calories in my mouth.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

• OK, here is a revelation: Sometimes I walk around in circles between different snack options, not wanting to open anything that is not already open (which would be admitting defeat). Instead, I turn the bars over, fiddle with the packets and fish around in the boxes, hoping that something might be open and I can perform a secret, no-harm extraction, surgery style.

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

• I had to look this up and Wikipedia says: “Three events will happen all at once in an instant: the living will die, the universe will be transfigured, and the dead will be resurrected, judged, and recompensed” and that reminds me of the trinity of snacks and multidimensional snacking. This is what the experts call it, when you eat a bit of chocolate and, with the taste still in your mouth, your perfectly rational brain goes: "Wow, that was great, but pretty sweet; what I need now is something salty!” So you go straight to the other secret compartment and after a couple of pretzels you say: "A handful of jelly beans would be the perfect balance to the salty experience I just had!” This loop continues until you are jolted out of it by an external force, such as the moment of Jesus' arrival.

So go ahead, call me a rough beast, slouching towards morbid obesity but as long as this vexed nightmare of a meeting is going on, my gaze will be blank and pitiless and I’ll be moving my slow thighs towards the snack cabinet at regular intervals.