The Merchant production pivoting to AI

The previous issue was the final straw for readers of The Merchant. The clicks for the “best” publication in the Midwest have gone down dramatically, and readers are jumping ship left and right because of the sudden decline in quality and general humor of the used-to-be beloved satirical publication from MC. 

This sparked a massive dilemma for Mr. Tim Baffoe, moderator for the club: what needs to be done to make the young Merchant writers better, funnier, and even funnier? 

Well, Mr. Baffoe’s has come up with an answer to that question.

Beginning with the publication’s first issue of the 2025-26 school year, all human writers will be left in the dust. AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, Grok, Copilot, and Gemini are ready to take the mantle and steer this ship towards the fame and fortune of yester years. These bots will complete the entire process of writing a Merchant article: brainstorming ideas, creating an outline, peer reviewing, making a draft, and finally uploading it to the website, completely taking over the responsibilities of the humans.

“This is a step made in the dark for us, for sure,” Baffoe stated. “After all, we have no idea if these AI phenoms can create something relatable, captivating, funny, and most importantly, meeting the standards that I set for this club. But a wet sock has a stronger sense of humor than Nicholas Lodato and more creativity than Adam Stanislawski, so it wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot.”

For decades, artificial intelligence has been in the works; however, in recent years, the capabilities and possibilities that one could achieve with AI have increased exponentially. These include, but are not limited to: answering specific difficult questions, making incredibly detailed images, and, of course, being able to write content. In hopes that this trend of exponential improvement for development continues, The Merchant replaced all of its human writers in hopes of becoming exponentially more funny as time goes on.

This announcement raised suspicious and concerned eyebrows among several in the MC community. What is the point of a club meant to stimulate the minds of teenagers who spend all of their time scrolling mindlessly through Instagram Reels if the teenagers are not even writing? If a goal of The Merchant is to take these students and make them learn how to think and use words in a way that is not asked of them in any other class or time management, is this goal still accomplished if there are no humans involved at all? What is the point of a club where students are to receive not only something valuable to put on their resumé but will also provide valuable creative thinking and articulation that will be useful for the rest of their life on Earth if the students themselves are not even involved in writing the articles at all? Is this really what The Merchant was meant to be?

“Who cares?” Freshman Bishop Daymond responds “As long as I get my fair share of funny Mount Carmel content, I’m content regardless of whatever ‘benefits’ it may have. Plus, ChatGPT has been writing my articles since October. Quite frankly, its name should be on the website instead of mine.”

Regardless of one’s opinion on the matter, one thing is for certain: AI is taking over The Merchant, and  Mr. Baffoe’s decision seems final. Now, an exclusive sneak peek from one of the future stars of the newspaper.

In a bold new initiative to combat the age-old epidemic of Freshman Annoyance™, Mount Carmel officials have announced that all freshmen will now be required to serve upperclassmen as personal assistants, errand runners, and, in some cases, mobile furniture. Sources say the program, lovingly dubbed "Operation Know Your Place," hopes to restore "the natural social order" and teach freshmen the valuable skill of carrying someone else's backpack without crying. Freshmen who object are encouraged to write a strongly worded complaint, fold it neatly, and deliver it to the trash can where it belongs. 

Funny, right? Or at least better than what is usually found in this publication, right?

AI content is not so bad, it seems. And this is how I lose my job.