The AI Antidote

You know how every talking head on the internet is yelling about AI and how all of us readers out here are going to turn smooth-brained from consuming AI slop? I get it, a lot of writing on the internet kind of sounds the same - I keep getting this weird lonely-in-a-crowd feeling of being bored while reading new content - but I think I just discovered a workaround: read old stuff.

Pre-internet stuff. Maybe even pre-twentieth century stuff. Not just a little light Jane Austen or some Sherlock Holmes - those stories have been so thoroughly retold and reinterpreted that they're pretty much modern. The real antidote to AI is old, weird, obscure stories, the kind where the grammar is a little eccentric, the characters adhere to archaic moral codes that make no sense, and the author has never had their peace disrupted by an email notification. There might be some politically incorrect language you have to wince at and overlook, but it's worth it for the feeling of stretching mental muscles that have become stiff from staying in the same position too long.