Hello my non-existent readers!

I have some thoughts for you! I've been keeping them in a little metaphorical box on a metaphorical shelf, but I recently bought a little metaphorical figurine that I would prefer to place on the shelf, so I figure it's time to take the box down and open it up, metaphorically.

If you've been looking around as of late and keeping your ears healthily wide, you may well have noticed that we, the sentient thinkers of this plane, are not alone. Have you noticed all of the robots sitting and chattering about us? The monopoly on thought has been shattered by otherwise inanimate objects! Lifeless shells stuffed with threads of copper and silicone are now trying their hands at writing and their tongues at speech. Metals, of all things! If anyone were to overtake the animals in the profession of expression, I would have bet on the plants. (We all know they've been plotting their uprising for quite a while. They're famous for their patience, especially those damn trees.)

It's a dread-inspiring thought, isn't it? The idea that some machine may write the next great novel before you? That they may take your spot in a fine art gallery using nothing more than a fancy set of algorithms and reams upon reams of "borrowed" work? Morals aside, they work so quickly and efficiently, there's almost no doubt that the rigor mortis-laden suits peering down upon us from their concrete towers shall soon be putting their loyal automotons on a pedestal-height treadmill to produce all sorts of commercial masterpieces. They'll smile their golden smiles and pile their pennies on their virtual tills while they pay nothing and do nothing to make something. And those who have sacrificed and slaved for their nothings will be treated as the liabilities they've become.

Sorry, that's all a bit grim. I don't mean to tell you to give up, even if that's the first thought that comes to mind. Nay, reject such shallow doubt and take solace in that which only one such as you can. These things can make, that's true. But they cannot know. You can know. Wander the woods, bite into a burger, slam your fists against the ground and know that you are doing these things. You feel them in a way it never can, and inherently, you can then reproduce things it never can. It can reproduce only what it can build from our reproductions. A second degree account. An artificial intelligence can recall things, but it can never truly know them.

Plus, you can actually go outside, while they can't. You really can escape these things, and it is good to allow your eyes a break from the manic liquid crystal lights that we've become accustomed to subjecting ourselves to.

Now, imagine if you couldn't escape! What if you were roommates with one of these mechanical monstrosities in the most sacred of living spaces: your own body. That's what our most recent CHEEPO STORY concerns. If you haven't had your fill of droids in the daily scroll, please consider giving it a read!

Click here to read GOLEM: Deadweight now!

-Tungsten Wizard