Whom the gods would destroy they first entice with faux cheesecake.

As should be obvious from the title, this post is about the Powerline blog and AI.

As many of you are aware, Powerline recently restricted comments to paying subscribers. Previously, anyone could comment on one of their blog posts after having gone through any of a variety of relatively easy third-party authentication processes.

I'm not a subscriber to Powerline. I enjoyed commenting occasionally, but not enough to pay fifty bucks for the privilege, especially since I can get everything else I want from the site for free. I don't know what prompted the policy change, but I don't begrudge them their right to make it, whatever their motivation.

However, I now feel compelled to comment on an issue with Powerline and, as I can not comment directly as a nonpaying visitor to the site, I'm going to post my comment here in hopes that someone who is in contact with Powerline (I'm looking at you @StevenHayward, and you @jameslileks) might pass on the message.

Steve Hayward was the man when it came to the Week in Pictures feature, always the online bright spot when Saturday rolled around, and, all due respect to John Hinderaker, Steve's geeky space humor and nerdy dad jokes always worked for me. Still, I continued to enjoy the feature under John's curating.

Until today.

The best part of the Week in Pictures is, obviously, the last picture, the pretty girl with a gun. But, to paraphrase Tiffany Gomas, that pretty girl with a gun is not real!

AI is going to make a few things better and most things very much worse. We all have to do what we can to fight it, to keep it from grinding everything special and exceptional into a bland, cartoonish DDD paste. Eternal vigilance is the price we have to pay to preserve our humanity. It's a fight we're going to lose, but one we nonetheless must take up.

For me, that fight begins in earnest with the babe at the end of the Powerline Week in Pictures.

Powerline, keep her human. Keep her real.