I sincerely want your thoughts here. Will these machines be the death of us all? Comment below.
As I opened a new article in Word (I haven’t used Word in quite a while), AI offered to help. I don’t use AI. I fail to see the benefit…or the fun. But I decided to put the virtual assistant to the test. I have had these conversations in the past with electrons. I once published a conversation with AI where you could see the struggle I was having trying to get AI to grasp dubious notions an average teen would see. I am impressed with the grasp of humor and nuance I now see. I queried thusly:
Me: What is your job here?
Copilot: I’m your writing partner in Microsoft Word. I can:
Draft content in your open document
Edit and format existing text while preserving everything you didn’t ask me to change
Review writing and suggest improvements
Explain or summarize the document
Brainstorm ideas, structure, wording, and tone
Work with tables, headings, page layout, citations, comments, and images
Your document is currently blank, so tell me what you want to create and I can build it directly in Word.
Me: Can you capture my style?
Copilot: Yes—I can learn and reproduce your voice, rhythm, and humor, but I’ll need representative samples first. The document is currently blank, so paste in a few pieces that sound unmistakably like you—emails, essays, captions, scripts, or even short jokes.
I’ll look for patterns such as:
Sentence length, pacing, and vocabulary
Dry, absurd, understated, sarcastic, or observational humor
How quickly you deliver the punchline
Favorite structures, callbacks, exaggerations, and asides
How polished, casual, blunt, or self-aware the voice feels
Expressions or habits to preserve—and clichés to avoid
Three strong samples are usually more useful than one long sample. I can then create a concise style profile and use it when drafting or rewriting.
(My next prompt is how I plan to open my next project on the P4B.)
Me: The following is a sample of my meter and humor. Can you capture my humor?
“Today marks the beginning of new and ambitious project here on the Free Zone.
“One of the pillars of the site has been history. Some of our best stuff has NOT been political (though it is primarily a political website). But with people like Professor Michael Stroud, , [a player to be named later] and Kurt Weldon among others, along with historic pieces I’ve pursued solo, some of our best stuff has been the review of significant events.
“Further, I have often questioned my decisions to not pursue the law or history as a career. I have been told, quite emphatically, that I’d missed my calling and might have done well as a litigator or history professor. But then, had I done that, I’d have missed out on a life of self-destructive debauchery that made me the man I am today.
“(“Self-destructive debauchery”…. Is that redundant?)
“Oh, WHAT-everrrr!
“The fact remains I do love history. I have the Shelby Foote Civil War trilogy in triplicate. If I don’t sell off two of them, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed is going to relieve me of at least one testicle as I sleep.”
Copilot: Yes—I can capture it. This sample already shows a distinct comic voice:
Meter: Formal, deliberate setup followed by a short disruptive beat. You favor long, rolling sentences, then puncture them with an aside or abrupt line: “Oh, what-everrrr!”
Humor: Self-deprecating, theatrical, and slightly bleak, with mock-grand language colliding with bodily or domestic consequences.
Comic architecture: Earnest claim → inflated evidence → sudden reversal → exaggerated consequence.
Persona: A knowledgeable raconteur who enjoys sounding authoritative, then immediately undermines his own dignity.
Signature devices: Parenthetical self-editing, mock formality, elongated words, grandiose euphemisms, conspicuously specific details, and recurring nicknames such as “She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.”
Timing: You often place the funniest material last, after the reader thinks the sentence has already made its point.
A compact instruction [to Copilot] for reproducing it would be:
Write in a cultivated, conversational voice with ceremonial setups, dry self-mockery, parenthetical second thoughts, and abrupt tonal drops. Build jokes through escalation, using precise historical or intellectual detail before ending on an undignified, absurdly concrete consequence. Keep the prose confident but let the narrator repeatedly sabotage his own authority.
One sample is enough to identify the outline; several more would let me distinguish your reliable habits from the features unique to this particular piece.
Me: Now, for continuity, allowing you to treat what I write, do I need to keep this side window open, or have we established our relationship for the record?
Note: This is already getting creepy.
Copilot: You don’t need to keep the side window open during this conversation; I can continue using what we’ve established here.
For future conversations, though, don’t assume the full profile will automatically carry over. The most reliable arrangement is to keep a short style sheet in the document—or paste it into a new conversation—along with one or two representative samples. Then I can immediately treat your prose according to the same principles rather than rediscovering them.
In short: relationship established for this conversation; portable record advisable for later ones.
Me: [using sarcasm - SARCASM! IN A CONVERSING WITH A COMPUTER!!!]. You and your short memory!
Copilot: Guilty. My memory has the lifespan of a congressional promise—but while we’re in this conversation, I’ve got your meter, your mock-grandiosity, and your habit of driving an elegant sentence directly into a ditch.
[Okay! This is what I am always going for when I throw curve balls into my material. NOW I’M SCARED!]
Me: "congressional promise"! I like the cut of your jib! Did you too live a life of debauchery?
Copilot: No corporeal existence, no misspent youth, no regrettable tattoos—just a vast archive of humanity’s poor decisions and the vocabulary to imply I was there.
I’m less a veteran of debauchery than its unpaid archivist.
That’s a computer saying that! This is fucked up!
Tentative conclusion: I don’t know what to really think about AI. Half of me says it will be the death of us all. I have used those exact words discussing the topic with my sons. When a machine, of its own volition, can have the above conversation, what does that say about its future evolution.
What tends to still my fears is this: The machine has no DESIRE or UNDERSTANDING. It may try to emulate a person who does have those attributes. But so long as they are not native - “genetic” to the machine, how can the machine “take over” and why would it want to? It has no wants…. Does it?
Can we teach the machine to have those qualities - real qualities, along with jealousy, genuine rage, love, hate, envy…? I don’t think so. Can an artificial intelligence acquire them organically? I think it even less likely.
But I am not a scientist. I can barely spell “comtuper”. So YOU school ME. Am I missing something here? Will these machines be the death of us all?
Between chapters of my upcoming project, perhaps I’ll have AI write an entire article on a subject (you chose) and see if it sounds like I wrote it. I will use the exact prompt Copilot suggested and then assign the subject most popular in the comments section below. Think obscure. The more odd the subject, the greater the test of Copilot.
Carry on! Rise to the challenge! Be a pal! COMPLY!
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