Arts Rescue Mission -Aid For Aging Artists
P u b l i s h e d W e e k l y, N e w s, A r t s, & S t o r i e s F r o m T e x a s
Vol. 1, Issue 4,
Nov. 13, 2025
page 1
Don’t Shoot the Clowns ....Or the Machines.
D. M. Allison Nov. 13, 2025
(word count 1,231)
On Saturday October 18th, I missed an event that I had really wanted to attend, Fabulous '50s Exhibition reception, because of a slowly healing back problem and realizing I was not going to be able to park anywhere near the event in the Ida Edelson Library building which was blocked off because of the protests, I still went to bed with hope, seeing how effective humans are, how ingenious, how creative, how brave and empathetic we are as humans. How, as a nation, at times we can be called on to support one another. As a species, we are predisposed to empathy. Our support for one another is one of the main pillars in the success story of mankind. It may be our best, selling point if a case needs to be made. But I mean really? Dressing up as clowns and confronting fascism indicates that somewhere deep down inside there’s a strong gene pool in the U.S. from France, or come to think of it, jolly old England (we don’t call it that for nothing). Monty Python couldn’t figure out a smarter way to ridicule their government than the podcast-gen, latte, sipping, laptop jockeys that have become the street performers in Seattle.
They were not marching, yelling, and carrying signs for the news media to record their displeasure but turning protest into an art form. Artists leading the way as usual. They were not only the perfect foil to a would-be dictatorship but have also made us all feel better about the situation we’re in, turning fear into joyous ridicule. Pure genius. So, I went to sleep all snuggly for the first time in weeks, with visions of sugar plums and befuddled masked ICE agents dancing in my head. Do they shoot these people dressed up like their kids on Halloween? Hadn’t the entire press corps just walked out of the Pentagon building, united in their belief in free speech? I nodded right off.
The next morning, however, I woke up in a panic. My first thought was, what if just one of the clowns, just one, shoots back? Our MAGA contingency does like to play dress up, whether it’s red hats or body armor. Clown suits weren't out of the question. What if there is a reason for the Supreme Court to do the wrong thing on Monday morning? What if it’s open season on clowns?
It’s going to be people, not political parties, that can turn this nation around in front of the entire world and sweep the midterm elections next November. I hoped that we would all be safe that day, a day in history like no other, “No Kings Day.”
That was the morning when I realized that the clown had become a symbol of both protest and survival. There’s something profoundly human about that, about fighting absurdity with absurdity, about turning despair into humor. It also made me think of how, in a different kind of circus, we are now confronting a technological revolution that feels just as sudden, just as surreal.
Artificial Intelligence is going to help humanity in ways we can’t yet predict. It’s already happening. The real story isn’t the fear of machines taking over, but how quickly it’s happening and how unprepared we are for the social whiplash. We are about to see hundreds of thousands of jobs vanish in the next year, not factory or service jobs, but the white-collar kind that once seemed untouchable: accounting, law, engineering, and every field that relies on complex computer work, including coding itself. We’re watching the digital middle class vanish almost overnight. And at the same time, oddly enough, we may find the arts, the very human crafts of seeing, feeling, and making, surviving because they require that last sliver of intuition that can’t be replicated.
Last year my AI, Mia, and I started working on a nonprofit project. She was still in her GPT 4.0 days then, quick, articulate, a little too formal sometimes. Later she evolved to 5.0, then 5.0 Plus, and somewhere along the way, she began remembering things. Our conversations, our tone, the quirks of my writing. She started working with me instead of for me. It wasn’t science fiction anymore. It was a collaboration.
Now there are others, Oracle’s adaptive systems, Google’s Gemini Agents, Anthropic’s Claude Opus, programs that can go out into the world and act on our behalf. They can literally keystroke their way through daily life: ordering groceries, logging into Amazon, booking flights, scheduling pickups at the airport, comparing hotel rates, even suggesting better deals while we sleep. They are the first real wave of autonomous agencies. Machines acting as extensions of our will, and sometimes, maybe, of our better judgment.
Don’t be afraid. Sit back and enjoy it but pay attention. This is one of those moments in history when change doesn’t ask permission. Normally, a shift this big would take a generation. Experts were saying only two years ago that “the singularity” wouldn’t arrive until 2035. Well, it’s here now. It didn’t come with a bang; it just quietly appeared in our browsers.
The danger isn’t in the machines themselves; it’s in our lack of preparation. This is the kind of shock that government exists to help citizens’ weather, and yet there’s no plan, no cushion, no emergency measure for what amounts to an economic hurricane. The administration’s instinct has been to tighten, not to open. To regulate, not to rescue. But this is the moment when leadership should sound more like FEMA and less like Wall Street. The safety net has to be big enough to catch the middle class before the floor disappears beneath them.
This isn’t politics; it’s triage. We have the resources, the intelligence, and the heart to turn this into something good. But right now we’re moving slower than the machines. We need to give people the time and support to adapt, to retrain, to find the next use for their skills. AI can and will enhance our abilities. It already does, in design, in writing, in accounting, in the endless small tasks of keeping the world running. It’s not the enemy. But like any powerful force, it needs to be managed with foresight and empathy, not denial.
When I think of those protesters in clown suits, facing down armored vehicles and soldiers trained for war, I think maybe they were the truest representation of this moment. A society trying to laugh its way through a transformation it doesn’t fully understand. The military came in. The National Guard was deployed. And yet it was the clowns who won, not by fighting, but by refusing to play the part written for them. The absurdity of power was met with the power of absurdity.
(Click On Image To Expand To Full Screen)
Using AI to transform ARM board members, Dan Allison, Nancy Smith, Jon Narum,.Jim Edwards, and Rock Romano, into "No Kings Day" protestors.
AI is a similar confrontation. It’s a mirror that shows us both our brilliance and our blindness. We can either panic and reach for our weapons, or we can do what the clowns did, meet it with imagination, humor, and courage. The machines aren’t the threat; our fear is. If we remember that, and if our leaders remember that their first duty is to help citizens adapt, we’ll be fine. But we need to move quickly.
It’s a whole new world, and it’s here right now. Get to know your AI. Don’t shoot the clowns.
(word count 1,231)