A Survival Talk by Mickey Milkovich
Title: “TEDxSouthSide: — A Survival Talk by Mickey Milkovich” Location: The Alibi Room. One neon light flickering. A half-broken mic taped to a pool cue. Ian’s filming on his phone. Lip is holding a notepad, smirking. Fiona’s pouring shots. Kev is clapping before it even starts. Frank is... somewhere unconscious.
[Mickey stands on a milk crate in a stolen hoodie, pacing with a beer in one hand and a half-lit cigarette in the other. He glares at the audience like they owe him money.]
MICKEY (gruff, aggressive): Alright, shut the hell up for five seconds, will ya? This is my TED Talk. I don’t know what TED stands for, but I assume he’s a guy who got punched a lot for asking too many questions.
Today’s topic: Artificial Intelligence. AKA, robot bullsh*t.
Part One: AI Is Gonna Take Your Job and Your Dignity
Look, I didn’t exactly go to Yale, okay? My resume’s mostly breaking and entering and some very informal anger management. But even I can see what’s coming.
You know how hard it is to find a job with a record? Now throw in a robot that doesn’t need lunch breaks or health insurance. Boom. Game over.
Self-checkouts? Delivery bots? Automated bartenders? Yeah, you can program a robot to make a margarita, but you can’t teach it how to not judge me while I’m crying into it.
Part Two: AI Is Already Spying on You—and You’re Helping It
You think that phone in your pocket is your friend? That thing's a snitch.
Every selfie you take, every search you type, every voice command you give… it’s all getting scooped up and spoon-fed to some data goblin in Silicon Valley. And what do you get in return? Targeted ads for therapy you can’t afford and vibrating toothbrushes you didn’t ask for.
You’re basically dating a narc. And guess what? The narc has Wi-Fi.
Part Three: AI Can’t Understand You—And That’s the Danger
You ever try explaining love, or rage, or that weird feeling when you think about setting your boss’s car on fire just for fun? AI doesn’t get it. It’s code. It’s math.
Humans are chaos. Beautiful, sweaty, emotional chaos. You try telling ChatGPT what it’s like to love someone so much it scares the hell outta you—and it’ll spit out some sappy Hallmark crap. It can imitate us, but it will never be us. And that gap? That’s where the danger lives.
Part Four: The Real Scary Sh*t — Autonomy
AI’s writing articles. It’s creating art. It’s making decisions for hospitals, banks, cops. You hear that? COPS.
What happens when the algorithm gets it wrong? When it decides someone’s a threat based on how they look, or where they’re from? Spoiler alert: It ain’t the rich white dude in the Tesla that’s getting profiled. It’s people like me. Like us.
And if a robot screws up? Who you gonna hold accountable? Good luck punching an algorithm. I tried. Broke my laptop. Didn’t help.
Part Five: Mickey’s AI Survival Tips
I’m not saying you gotta live off the grid and bathe in a river (unless that’s your thing, Liam), but here’s how not to get screwed by Skynet 2.0:
- Use cash whenever possible. Robots can’t track your guilt if you buy whiskey with green paper.
- Don’t give your face to every dumb app filter. That’s not cute. That’s data mining, idiot.
- Learn real people skills. Flirting, negotiating, threatening—whatever you’re good at. Robots can’t fake vibe.
- Back up your life. On paper. AI crashes and you lose everything? Your spiral notebook won’t betray you.
- Stay unpredictable. Be the chaos. Break the algorithm. If you always do what they expect, they win.
Closing Words (Mickey-style):
Look. I’m not against tech. I like porn and GPS as much as the next guy. But if we give too much power to something we don’t understand, we’re not evolving—we’re surrendering.
So don’t be lazy. Don’t be stupid. And don’t let some overpriced Roomba make you feel obsolete.
Stay angry. Stay weird. Stay human.
[Mic drop. By which I mean, Mickey literally throws the mic at the jukebox. Sparks fly.]
[Applause. Ian’s proud. Svetlana lights a cigarette. Frank snorts awake and mutters, “Is the robot pope here yet?”]
End of TEDx Talk. Title card fades in: “No AI was harmed in the making of this talk. But it was considered.”