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>be me
>Ed Zitron
>sitting at my standing desk, veins throbbing in my forehead as I outline a 4,000-word essay about how generative AI is a multi-trillion-dollar confidence trick
>my son walks into the office holding an Xbox controller
>Dad, can I buy the new Goku skin in Fortnite?
>stare at him, my own flesh and blood, asking me to feed the beast
>Son, I say, voice trembling with righteous fury. Do you know who owns Xbox?
>...Microsoft?
>I slam my hands on the desk, rattling my Yeti microphone
>I tell him: the very same Microsoft engaging in circular financing with OpenAI! They hand Satya Nadella monopoly money to rent their own Azure servers, artificially inflating revenue metrics to trick Wall Street into believing a glorified autocomplete engine has a Total Addressable Market of the entire solar system!
>he just blinks, a single tear of confusion rolling down his cheek
>Dad, I just want the orange hair guy...
>snap.exe
>stand up, towering over him with the manic energy of a man who has read one too many enterprise software earnings reports
>walk past him, grab the Xbox Series X out of the entertainment center, ripping the HDMI and power cords straight out of the wall
>march out the front door into the driveway in my socks
>he chases me crying
>Dad no! My rank!
>I raise the console above my head like the tablets of Moses
>SLAM IT ONTO THE ASPHALT
>it shatters into a dozen pieces of cheap molded plastic
>STOMP ON THE MOTHERBOARD >SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS: "IT’S CIRCULAR FINANCING! THEY'RE SELLING PICASSO TO THE GUY WHO BORROWED MONEY FROM PICASSO! THERE IS NO PRODUCT-MARKET FIT FOR STOCHASTIC PARROTS!”
>postman stares at me from across the street
>turn to my sobbing son, put a firm hand on his shoulder
>”You're welcome. I just saved you from becoming an uncompensated data point in a venture-capital liquidity event."
>I do a 360 and walk back inside
>log onto X to tweet “People are mad at me for telling the truth about the Xbox.”