By John McCormick

After having been tossed to the curb like trash bags, my coworkers and I sighed. Despaired, really. But it was just a small ignominy in the grand scheme of humiliation, and it wouldn’t do to get too worked up over it. Look, I’ve been laid off before, and you know what? It’s fine. It’s always been fine. This time, like usual, I landed on my feet. In a way. I have this gig now, after all.

I don’t need to be the one to tell you that, from 2025 to 2029, the number of working journalists dropped a whopping 95%. And for everyone who would have smirked and suggested we learn to code, the market for software engineers is almost as dire, with openings down from their peak in early 2022 by almost 80%.

These are ugly numbers, and they tell an ugly truth. But somehow I’ve managed to keep my job and my head, even though I’m the only human writer on staff at the New Orlando Times. Onboarding was strange, as you can imagine. My boss, also, is a robot. But my boss’s boss is Mr. Hal Rainbow, and I suppose I owe my thanks to him for supporting the arts, though I think I’d do it a little differently if I were him.

I’m allowed to criticize things. I can complain, for example, about the incompetence of the New Orlando Conglomerate, that unholy product of corporate matrimony that birthed the first and only private state in the world — on the Moon, rather. And yes, I’d rather they were more transparent, or offered more funding for manmade art, or lowered my rent, but you likely share all the same concerns. So I don’t know exactly what to say here other than I respect Mr. Rainbow a great deal for being so generous as to hire me and I hope I can demonstrate the value of a human voice in a world that has become increasingly automated.