This cartoon, of course, was inspired by the infamous picture that President Trump posted to his social media account on 12 April 2026. However, this cartoon is not anti-Trump, nor is it necessarily anti-A.I. It is, however, a cautionary tale about the accelerated pace of communication made possible by computers.

Prior to the advent of email and social media, if you wanted to send a long-distance message in writing, you had to do it on paper. This typically required hand-writing or typewriting your thoughts and sending the resulting note in the mail. The whole process took at least one to two days, or longer. During that time, you had a chance to reflect and revise, and decide whether or not you REALLY want to send it. Many bad ideas or poorly-composed thoughts didn't make the cut and were wisely discarded.

But with electronic media, we have the ability to send out our thoughts almost as quickly as we can think them. This has its advantages, but it also lets us broadcast ill-formed thoughts or half-baked prose immediately, before we have time to consider whether we really want them linked forever to our digital footprint.

Generative A.I. only exacerbates this problem. Now, we can create and broadcast content on a whim, without even taking the time to compose (much less proofread) it first — and risk damaging reputations (our own and others'). Trump may be impulsive, but he's not stupid. I'm sure he would not have posted that image, had he taken a little more time to consider.