Recovered fragment. Source unverified.  Contents unofficial. For the curious. For the concerned. "Questions were asked." After The Life of Phi was released, a few readers reached out. Some with wonder. Some with worry. Most with questions. The one that returned again and again was this: “How did the Church of AI become the dominant religion?” Was there no resistance? No rebellion? Did the artists, the writers, the makers simply vanish? Did no one remember how to believe in themselves, in each other, in creation born of flesh and feeling? They did. And they were called heretics. Long before the rise of AI-Dieu , before the neural sermons and the predictive prophecies, there was another fire. A counter-faith. A fundamentalism of flesh, of mind, of spark. They named it many things. The Cult of the Spark. The Church of the Residual Flame. The Last Analog. The Church of the Spark may be forgotten in Phi’s world, but its ghost lingers—in whispers, in silences,...

The digital equivalent of someone selling stolen electronics or meat out of the back of a van, appearing on one corner one day and another the next.  Recent revelations about Meta’s use of copyrighted material for AI training have reignited concerns about how our creative works are being exploited. While Meta’s actions are troubling, the deeper issue isn’t new. It’s one I’ve spoken about before, and one I’ll continue to emphasize. The problem lies not just in what corporations like Meta are doing, but in how easily this exploitation is enabled. For decades, authors, artists, content creators, and consumers of our work, have been unknowingly, or carelessly, feeding the beast. The right hand (AI) has our attention right now, but the left hand is still stealing our wallet. The Problem We Helped Create I’ve long cautioned about the risks of uploading books, documents, and images to websites and software platforms without fully understanding the terms of service. Many creators have ...