With this year’s Christmas push having been nothing short of a disaster (see The Day of Many Explosions), Santa Claus is now desperate. As he covers in this week’s column, he’s turned to AI to automate stuff and try to save the day.

Now, we’re sure you’re as sick of hearing about AI as we are. But for greedy, dickhead business conglomerates with their heads stuck up their pompous arses, it’s great because you might get to lay loads of people off soon.

Santa seems chuffed about that! Even if his AI experiments went a little… wrong.

Integrating AI Into the Santa Factory to Facilitate the “Joy” of Commonplace Christmas Rituals

SANTA IS SICK OF THIS! SICK OF IT! SICK! SICK! SICK!!! All these bloody months I’ve been bloody well toiling a bloody way and for bloody what!? I’ve bloody well risked life and bloody limb for those bloody scumbags out there and it bloody well does my head in that I’ve bloody well made no bloody progress for Christmas bloody Day. We’ve not even bloody well hit bloody 1% of the annual Christmas production bloody target! What the bloody hell is that!?

In a drunken haze, Santa was sitting in my office sulking and slugging from a bottle of Drambuie.

Markus, my head elf, was standing before my desk nervous leafing through sheets on a flipchart. I gazed all my loathing hatred of the world on the little bastard.

“Stop making that racket, dipshit!”

“Sir…”

“‘SIR’ WHAT!?” I BELLOWED.

Markus (my head elf) went quiet and I, Santa, sulked some more. Later that day, when extremely drunk and volatile, I had one of my genius Santa sensations. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE! I’d been Surfing The Internet like a bro, mainly looking through sites about beef burgers (I was in a hungry mood) when an email popped into my email box. The subject:

VASTLY SUPERIOR BUSINESS OWNER GENIUS: YOU NEED AI TO BOOST PRODUCTIVITY, ZAP PROCRASTINATION, AND SUPERCHARGE BUSINESS GROWTH INTO 2025 AND BEYOND!!!!!!!!!!! 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

Santa sat there in shock before blurting out, “HOLY CRAPPING MICROWAVED HAGGIS! This email is RIGHT!” Santa immediately got over the factory tannoy system and began a whooping, retching, hacking coughing fit. That took several minutes to clear, but when then ended I began bellowing at Markus, Kenneth the walrus, and Rudolph to get into my office.

I turned away from the tannoy and they were already bloody there!

“What sorcery is this!?” I snarled.

“Sir, when you have a violent coughing attack like that, we know through long and tortuous experience, to get into the office.” Markus squeaked.

“Oh, and why is that, you precocious little bastard!?”

“Because it either means you’re having cardiac arrest, are choking on a burger, or you have a new and totally insane business idea.”

“Well, it’s a new and totally batshit insane business idea, Markus! And this is my… PLAN OF ACTION!”

Santa’s AI Automation Plan of Action Confusion

Santa immediately signed up to the $500,000 p/a AI integration platform to integrate the integrational integrations into the Santa factory. The company, a London-based SaaS firm called PutrescenceAI, set it all up digitally. I spoke with the CEO, a dickhead called Rupert (can you believe the names people have these days!?), on a video call and he walked me through what this new fangled “artificial intelligence” does.

Naturally, I was pretty wasted when we had that call. So, Santa can’t really remember anything that was said.

The net result is I’ve got all this fancy pants SOB AI software installed to “automate” the Santa factory, but I haven’t got a goddamn clue how to use it. Santa raged at the CEO about this and he set up another call, for which I was extremely drunk and promptly forget the second tutorial.

Santa demanded a refund with a VERY AGGRESSIVELY worded email, which I sent to Google’s customer complaints service. Google responded by saying it has nothing to do with PutrescenceAI and suggested I make a claim to PutrescenceAI, not Google.

I was extremely angry and confused by this point, so sent one of the most abusive emails I’ve ever written to PutridAI, who turned out to be a competitor of PutrescenceAI, plus there’s one called RancidAI and PutrefactiveAI. All of them have their names in italics because it’s “trendy”.

FATHER CHRISTMAS DOES NOT CARE FOR ITALICS!

To make this easy on myself, I decided to send all of the AI companies an EXTREMELY abusive and accusative email (all in italics and caps) ranting about them being incompetent and corrupt.

I soon received an automated reply from all companies, written by AI chatbots, apologising profusely for the matter. That came across as very disingenuous… Santa was impressed! I like seeing that sort of business cop out. After all, the customer is always pong (as in they smell bad… maybe that’s why all the AI companies are named after stinky poops).

Santa’s AI Automation Plan of Action SUCCESS!!!

Santa took advantage of being marginally with it at 6am one fine, snowstorm day. The hangover was one of those ones when I could actually walk, so I went with Markus (my head elf) to the Control Room to get the AI automated. Kenneth the walrus was there (for no good reason), so I told the bastard to leave. Kenneth the walrus refused to leave. Markus informed me it’s because Kenneth the walrus is concerned he may lose his job because of AI. Markus then also said he was concerned AI would replace him.

While he prattled on I bellowed over the top of him, interrupting his pathetic whinnying.

“IF I WERE TO SACK YOU USELESS BASTARDS, I WOULD HAVE SACK YOU AT LEAST A CENTURY AGO!”

This didn’t seem to make them look any happier, so Santa turned my attention to the AI contraption stuff and “automated” it. There’s a button on the software ($500,000 remember!) and you press the “Go Automated” button and then you sit back and wait to see what happens.

Santa sat there waiting.

My big hairy butt started to itch, so I itched it. Why wasn’t that automated? Where were the robots to sort all this out!? What was with this “AI” crap?! Annoyed, Santa started drinking heavily. 24 hours later and I recovered from my blackout with Markus (my head elf) ready and waiting with a report on his STUPID little flipchart.

“Well, Markus? Is Christmas sorted? Did the AI work? IS IT A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE?!”

It turns out the AI is only highly effective at:

• Operating the air conditioning system
• Automating the doors in reception
• Documenting all of the above in endless reams of Big Data reports
• Providing the reports in real-time

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF BLOODY HELL DOES THIS MEAN?!” I bellowed.

“Sir, it means,” Markus squeaked, “the elves in the factory won’t get frostbite again and can work 24/7 to try and meet the Christmas quota.”

Markus then led me out back of the factory to where all the real-time data reports were being printed out in endless reams of paper. I had Kenneth the walrus set fire to the lot and burn the “real-time” data. The massive stack of paper blazed, toppled over, and demolished factory unit three. After being demolished, the unit burned hellishly for the next 12 hours.

Not so much “automated” but “immolated”. Santa scratched my big hairy arse and staggered off on gout-ridden ankles to get wasted.