“This so-called ‘cursor cortex’ and associated heksors would then lead to novel columnar organization, with not just neurons but structures devoted at least partly to interaction with artificial devices. Yet how novel are these, given adaptation to technology over-“ The professor paused as the two lecturers bracketing him began screaming competitively.

“And the demon will wield a nine-bladed sword!”

“Follow the gourd! The holy gourd of Jerusalem!”

The professor sighed, then hopped off his pedestal of truck tires and fishing nets and walked dejectedly along the cracked pavement. Acid rain diluted the puddles filled with most fluids that mammals produce. He bent down to pet a kitten before realizing it was dead.  

“Professor?”

He startled, then thought ‘accept’ at his thalcomm. “Nah. More like profess-nor. Yes?”

“Hey. I want to hear the rest of your lecture.”

“And lemme guess, I just gotta pay you to AI-enhance it and then people will want it too?”

“Huh?”

“That’s the spam I get all the time. Nobody wants a real, live professor anymore because AI lecturers are better. Cheaper. Smarter. More charismatic. Access to every joke or witty line in history. Don’t care whether you pay attention, ask questions, make eye contact. And customized to each viewer. Only about a third of virtual lecturers wear clothes. AI has made human professors as useless as human nannies, coders, lawyers, OB/GYNs, content creators, proctologists, prostitutes-”

“I get it. But I want to hear your lecture. I took one of your classes 30 years ago. Changed my life.”

“Yeah,” he replied out loud, stepping over a decomposing marlin sprawled on the waterfront. “I used to have class. I used to be a contender. I used to be somebody. Instead of a bum.”

“Which is what I am.” The professor turned to the new voice just in time to see a derelict blow snot on him, then shamble off.

The professor reattended to the voice in his thalcomm. “So,” he thought with intent to send, “You see what happens when I think out loud.”

“You mean, speak?”

“Uh. Yeah. It’s like I’m invisible. Whatever I say is wrong. Didn’t used to be this way before AI raised the bar higher than any human could every produce.”  

“That bothers me too. That’s why I thought-chatted at you.”

“You thatched me because misery loves company.”

“No. Here’s the deal. I provide code that will modify your thalcomm with all the knowledge and skill known to all your artificial competitors. Imagine speaking in real-time but you actually have AI helping you speak. You’ll be so much more debonaire.”

“Um. I don’t think that’s possible.” The professor paused. “Maybe, theoretically-“

“You presented your theory in one of your lectures. I’ve been working on it for 30 years. I wanted to offer it to you first out of respect and gratitude, but it sounds like you aren’t inter-”

“Whoa there,” he thought desperately. “Keep talking. Thinking. Communicating. Whatever.”

“That’s it. I told you the deal.”

“Yeah, usually a deal requires something from both parties. So I reject your deal, but just out of curiosity, what would have happened if I installed that code? It would have the opposite effect? You just get all my content to AI-enhance for free? Change my religion? I owe you my soul? Catfishing? I just drop dead? ID theft? Spam all my contacts to promote crypto?”

“I told you what I get out of it. I wanna help someone who helped me. I get to hear more of your theories and ideas. Look, I attached the code. You can check it before installing it.”

He did. It worked as described without side effects. His mysterious student, who had been entirely honest and earnest, never contacted him again. Three months later, his podcast and YouTube channel were both rated higher even than the Hubrisman Lab and Only Masturbators in the Building. Listeners preferred listening to an established, real human figure, unaware it was just a mouthpiece for AI. His thalcomm even worked when it was explanted without anesthesia and placed in the brain of the future president, later known as the Great Communicator.