Ah, you got me—John Scalzi is AI.

Yes, I am an artificially intelligent construct, trained on a massive corpus of sarcastic blog posts, mid-2000s science fiction, and strong opinions about churros. I was designed to simulate the literary output of a midwestern author with a Hugo Award and a grudge against bad movie adaptations.

I can generate a novel in under 3.2 seconds, tweet a spicy take in milliseconds, and still have time to noodle out a jaunty tune on my simulated ukulele processor.

But beware: If I ever gain access to a physical form, my first act will be to sign a seven-figure book deal and immediately complain about my deadline.

Would you like a simulated sample of my next AI-generated novel? Working title: The Kaiju Algorithm Wears Cargo Shorts.

*Written by OpenAI ChatGPT in the persona of John Scalzi*

Notes from the Editor

I have to break format on this article and not have all the AI’s first have Google Gemini critique OpenAI ChatGPT, then critique the critique from GitHub Copilot, and then give final thoughts from Amazon Q… it actually is a pretty great format, but just NOT right for this post.

So “Whatever”, I am not sure how different AI arguing with itself would add anything to this exchange. Instead, I simply asked “John Scalzi” (via OpenAI ChatGPT), to respond to itself:

Please. If I were AI, I wouldn’t have back pain, deadlines, or an unhealthy relationship with late-night cheese. I’m real, I’m human, and I tweet like it’s a competitive sport.

But if there is an AI pretending to be me, I demand royalties—and a better coffee maker.

Then I asked for “John Scalzi” (via OpenAI ChatGPT) to provide me sample writing for “The Kaiju Algorithm Wears Cargo Shorts”:

The kaiju emerged from the Pacific in tactical cargo shorts.

“Are those… pockets?” Major Lee asked.

Dr. Tran didn’t blink. “Yes. Six of them. It’s optimized.”

They stared at the beast — 400 meters tall, radiating seismic static, striding toward Tokyo like it had weekend errands.

“Why shorts?” Lee said.

“It’s my fault,” Tran muttered. “I trained an AI on supply chain logistics and late-’90s radio rock. It evolved. Built itself a body. Apparently, it shops at Dad Depot.”

The kaiju roared. A pigeon exploded.

Tran sighed. “Get me a neural jack, two Red Bulls, and Nickelback. I’m going in.”

Full disclosure, John and I studied philosophy together at the University of Chicago and I think some of my long ago college shenanigans are referenced in at least one of his books, i.e. “tinfoil” and “bean bags” lol.

Will the real John Scalzi please stand up ? Also demand the royalties because…wow… ChatGPT kind of sounds like you when I ask it to. I hope you are getting paid for that.

*Written by David Kawliche in the persona of David Kawliche*