6/18/2026: The End?

Today I performed a very small act which arguably caps off the end of what has been, to me, a gargantuan personal challenge and the fulfillment of an aspiration I've had since childhood.

From a young age I wanted to become a novelist. I imagined countless copies of a thick, glossy tome displayed proudly on a bookshelf somewhere, bearing my name on the cover. Something containing deeply personal and profound adventures springing uniquely from my own mind.

Today's small act was to place my copyright registration certificate into a frame and lean it against the wall in my office. So, now it's official that I own the creative work over which I so intensely labored for seven years.

I received my certificate in the mail many months after formally submitting my request (standard government turnaround time), which had involved mailing a physical copy of my book to Washington, D.C. Is obtaining this document a significant achievement? Was it even necessary, or worth the time, to formally secure the copyright? Perhaps not. None of this project was necessary, which is a big part of what makes its completion so satisfying.

Since beginning the project in 2018, I've:

• Conceived of a book idea

• Committed to the goal of completing and publishing the book

• Written countless drafts (and deleted/re-written hundreds of pages)

• Requested and received feedback

• Sent query letters to traditional book publishers

• Accepted the necessary reality of self-publishing

• Hired a human professional to give me final round manuscript feedback

• Hired a human professional to design a book cover

• Hired a human professional to format the final manuscript

• Created a book website

• Published the book

• Submitted a copyright application

• Framed my official copyright certificate

The book is about, among many other things, the dangers of AI, and the associated weakening of humanity. Generative AI and LLMs did not exist when I began writing - and of course, I used no AI whatsoever in writing the book (or this blog post) - but hopefully the statements that it makes will nevertheless remain relevant.

I hope people will keep writing books, and reading human-written ones. I don't know if books in their traditional form will remain viable amid the chaos of the information explosion upon which we're now embarking (I hope and believe they will), and I can't know for sure if my book is truly "good" (I hope and believe it is). But I do know that many of the best things in life are about journeys as much as destinations. And I know that we must take care not to lose touch with what makes us human.

From within our human minds, we can create symbolism, meaning, even the seeds of revolutions, out of thin air, using nothing but words - without the aid of a vector database, a "corpus," or a data center. "Such is the power of the written word." Something to celebrate, and to preserve.

While this particular journey does appear to be ending, I'll be on the lookout for ways to take it further or to use it as a springboard to channel its momentum toward the next one.

In the meantime, please read Masks of the Technocrats!