Still Gone

It has been so many years since I last wrote a blog and I would not be writing one now, if not for circumstances.

Since the death that led to me no longer "feeling it" with reviewing everything I encounter, my life has taken several turns. On the plus side, I am much, much happier experiencing things - art, media, food and basic life experiences - than I was when I was reviewing constantly. I've also returned to my writing and if you want to support an awesome small press and this indie author, please buy a book from me at Enlighten Someone Daily!

But also since I stopped reviewing, the U.S. government has abrogated its Constitutional responsibility to protect copyright protected works. Did you know that copyrights are an enumerated right right there in the U.S. Constitution? Seriously, before the Bill Of Rights and all of the other Amendments, the federal government was charged with protecting intellectual property rights. Those rights - not a privilege, a right - to receive credit and compensation for created works are supposed to be Constitutionally protected, which means the government isn't supposed to be able to weaken those rights without... a Constitutional Amendment. But, human greed and political corruption being what they are, the federal government - which includes many people with wealth to invest in the industries they are supposed to regulate and a work ethic that compels them to cling to their job without doing the actual work that career demands - has completely fallen down on its mandate to regulate business interests that exploit creatives and innovators.

Yup, I'm talking about generative a.i. Each and every time some moron destroys our environment by asking an A.I. program to do something they (or someone else) could do, in addition to destroying the environment and gutting labor protections, they are utilizing a program that stole intellectual property that was copyright protected. Property like this very blog. In any other time and place, the bias is on the protected class - in this case artists, researchers and other creatives who have intellectual property. In the current moment, however, greedy dipshits would rather roll the dice on making money even though the foreseeable consequences of the technology have been well documented by the very creative minds who first conceived such artificial intelligences. I have a wonderful short story about those foreseeable consequences to add to the zeitgeist in Tales From Our Current Apocalypse.

Anyway, like many artists, I've joined a lawsuit to do my part to take down these massive corporations. They aren't too big to fail; they are bloated on the intellectual property they have stolen and it is well past time they are financially ruined, their products are destroyed and all wealth generated based on the brief time they existed breaking the law is distributed to the artists whose work they stole. For that, my lawyer said I needed to post something new for them to register.

This is that post.

Fuck A.I.

© 2026 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.