So it happened — my publisher tried to get me to remove some em-dashes as we work on my blurb for publication.

  My alt + 0151.

  My beloved go-to insert for when I'm indecisive about what to use - : ; , .

  Damn clankers.

  I titled this Rage Against the Machine not just to talk about AI, but another topic that's been bugging me throughout my life: we're coming to the inevitable end of a brutal era of efficiency innovations, and I genuinely don't believe AI will save us. Not without a few significant changes in society.

  This is going to read a bit like "old man yells at clouds" with a dash of business economics.

  Man, I am getting old.

  Fun fact: whenever you see a - or -- in my work and it should've been an em-dash, that's when I typed that part of the manuscript without access to a numpad. I only recently learned the windows key + . trick to bring up the symbol picker.

  Disruptive vs Sustaining vs Efficiency Innovation

  The clankers are disruptive, efficiency innovations on a trajectory of abject unsustainability.

  OK quick summary for the uninitiated. The above three — disruptive, sustaining, and efficiency innovations — are part of a pretty influential business theory formalized by this guy:

  TLDR, applied to storytelling and writing (as I see it):

  - Disruptive innovation is usually "hey, new genre/meta" (the first few to write isekai, portal fantasy, progression fantasy, rebirth/reborn, LitRPG, etc.)

  - Sustaining is "hey, I can do that but better" (there's more in the new genre space making it viable by producing more audience)

  - Efficiency is "hey, I can do that with less effort" (the essence is distilled down to its core elements and turned formulaic, see Save the Cat and standard beat sheets when it comes to storycrafting)

  I'm being a bit generous with that last one, though I admit this is my own interpretation and the entire application isn't a 1:1. However, if one were to view the ecosystem of content as business ventures, an argument could be made that a lot of it is efficiency innovations. Take any genre that's well-established; almost nothing new is ever being introduced to the genre. However, you certainly have a lot of people trying their best to remix the formula for efficiency gains.

  This is why the saying goes: success breeds repetition. It's just a shame that a lot of the time, repetition simply means copycats. I'm a fan of reading "improved/different take on established formula" and not a fan of "I copied that formula and changed the variables" for a reason.

  But I understand. Earlier, I said we're in the sunset years of a brutal era of efficiency... "innovation." I use quotations there because the more appropriate term in the zeitgeist is enshittification. Sound familiar? Yeah, unfortunately, all the "charging you more for less" moves that corpos be doing is really efficiency innovation at work. Don't hate the finance departments, hate the game.

  Sustainable Creation is Costly

  Disruptive innovation is like a startup: most will fail. Sustaining innovation is still not a guarantee of return. Efficiency innovation is squeezing more money out of what already works.

  If you ever wondered why Hollywood and traditional publishing are in an ouroboros loop of pumping out derivative, formulaic and same-y content, this is why. There is no appetite for risk and everything demands a return. I often see new/aspiring authors on the RR forums or Reddit asking about the best way to succeed and get $$$ flowing into their Patreon and sigh. These individuals are more worried about the business economics of their effort than the quality of their art.

  And yet, that's fine. My message is not that "art for the purpose of monetary return is not art" — far from it. I think it's still art. Heck, caricature artists and street performers are there to make money, and I'm a fan of their art. Creating is hard; we only have one life and "doing it for the art" is an idealistic view. My point is that any artist's existence needs to be sustainable for them to continue creating art, and as creators we should be cognizant of if we want to treat something as a simple past-time or a productive endeavor.

  At time of writing this author note, I myself have spent well over 6000 hours (about 1.2k hours a year) on Below the Heavens without having been paid a single cent. You could argue that this makes me an inefficient writer compared to say, Sanderson. Sure, but I don't view art as a labor to product pipeline; what gives it soul is the mistakes I made and how I grew as the artist along the way.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Is it a fulfilling hobby? Yes. Is it being subsidized by my day job as a wage slave? Yes. Is it sustainable in the long run if I don't find a revenue stream with it? Probably not. I might get married one day and the wife/kids will wonder why I'm spending my time on this project instead of paying the bills. Being a starving writer is not conducive to being a sustainably productive one.

  But now we have a problem: AI. Artificial "Intelligence" in the form of Large Language Models (LLMs). Predictive text generators on steroids. They're disruptively efficient: with a few simple prompts, any individual can fully generate a full novel or even book series in about as much time as it takes me to finish drafting a single chapter. There will be prompters using AI generation as an innovation to create a revenue stream with varying degrees of success.

  But the problem is: it's not sustainable.

  Clankers Aren't Gonna Save Us

  "AI will happen faster than you like and slower than you want."

  The above is something I've been saying since ChatGPT came out. Where the heck is the AI that can do my laundry and clean my house? What do you mean, people think they can be good writers and storytellers simply by prompting it?

  I'm a millennial, a 90s kid. I grew up with tech and the internet in ways that Gen X did not. On the other hand, I have fond memories of a time before technology was unavoidably everywhere — something Gen Z and Alpha don't tend to have. I watched technology improve... well, most things. Some misses, of course, but mistakes prove we're trying (though Juicero did not require hindsight).

  As a result, I've been mostly pro-tech throughout my life. I still am; but this recent "can you remove some em dashes?" thing has really rubbed me the wrong way. Who knew that this tiny line — was where I drew the line?

  The advent of AI really changed it all. From AI slop to AI-adjacent impacts like my RAM and SSD prices (I want to go back to August 2025 and punch myself for thinking it'll get cheaper for Black Friday), January 2026 is when it really sunk in that there is no going back. There is a world before AI and a world after AI, and for quite possibly the first time in my life I am disliking the trajectory we're heading.

  AI Destroys the Artist-Consumer Relationship

  The relationship between artist and consumer is simple: you give me your time and attention, I promise to make it an experience worth your while.

  I think art exists as a result of a human's struggle to give it form. Less romanticizing the starving, penniless artist and more romanticizing "CKMo mad that his 100th rewrite of the same line still seems slightly worse than the fourth version, only for readers to not even know he lost four days of sleep turning it over in his mind."

  If any of my lines ever stuck out to you as worth remembering, do know that those were hand-crafted cocktails of artisanal suffering featuring select farm-to-table diction and finely-powdered thinking.

  What does that look like when I shorten it with AI? Let's see. I just went to ChatGPT and prompted it with: "write a thought provoking line"

  Here's the result: "Most certainty isn’t conviction—it’s just discomfort with sitting inside a question long enough to be changed by it."

  *angry fist shake at the em-dash* Okay but what the heck does that mean? I'm not illiterate and it still took me several reads before I think I understood it. Then to make sure I understood what it meant, I asked GPT what that means, and it clarified.

  GPT Take 2: "Much of what passes for conviction is really just impatience with uncertainty."

  Clanker really couldn't have led with that? GPT failed at something I try to be cognizant of: reader reception (see my last Behind the Pages).

  Admittedly, the line itself feels as though it could be an interesting observation, but something about it feels incomplete. Is the intent here to be more patient with uncertainty? Is it to explain why some people are the way they are? I'm not sure, but I don't want to put more thought into it than the machine devoid of thought.

  On my end, I try to give characters like Flangel and the Red Emperor lines that should illuminate an observation or philosophy natural to these characters. The intent is for these to be thought about in the shower and/or on the toilet. (Yes, my definition of success is to write a line so good my reader thinks about how it applies it to their life.)

  No, I'm not saying my writing or thinking is perfect — but that might be what gives it meaning. I want future-me to look back at my current work and cringe, the same way I currently look at my previous work.

  This might be the core issue of why I hate reading AI slop: If you put AI slop in front of me, is the intent to just get my time and attention and not actually because you tried to give me something fulfilling? Because it sure feels like it. AI content is so optimized for creation that it removes the soul to improve margins.

  Of course, AI prompters can still edit the resulting work to give it more of a personal touch. But it honestly feels like being served instant ramen with add-ons. If I can tell I paid for slop with my time/attention I'm going to be mad; insulted, even. Moreover, if you're a creator that's going to take the time to hide the AI-part please just don't start with AI in the first place.

  It's changing how the consumers view the medium as a whole, and all for what? Because churning out a thousand attempts of AI slop might result in a positive revenue stream? That's unsustainable because it risks destroying the common goodwill of readers by teaching them to approach each new work with a distrusting mindset.

  What Can Readers Do?

  Simple economics: supply is unsustainable without demand.

  A genre exists because there's demand for it. It's encouraging to see the reader backlash against AI generated content and I certainly hope it stays that way. Unfortunately, the battle isn't over because the war is evolving; those looking to capitalize on the new disruptively efficient generation machine will do their best to explore different ways to blend in with real, struggling creators.

  So if you're a reader, know that the type of content you spend your time and attention consuming contributes to the ecosystem. If you read more slop, more slop will be generated. If you read more unique works where a human clearly bled their heart out on the pages, that individual will be incentivized to continue creating for their audience. Be cognizant about what you're consuming because it affects more than you think. Enshittification happens not because we desire it, but because we allow it.

  As for me, I'm not giving up my em-dash.

  Thanks for reading.