'AI' is Not a Tool

It pains me to link to LinkedIn, but for a Rich Hickey take I’ll do it.

He calls out referring to AI as a “tool”:

As a lifelong tool builder and user, I know what tools are. LLMs are not tools [...] LLMs are automation.

Shots fired!

You don't direct the action of an LLM - you make requests and it acts on its own, without your energy or continuous direction

You have traded working with the world to working for a capricious robot.

What have we lost?

What do you miss by abdicating doing the reading? Pretty much everything. First and foremost, you miss learning how to write from those who can. You miss learning how to formulate an argument. You miss noticing things. You miss loading your background mind with fodder for novel ideas. You miss building trust in some authors and suspicion of others. You miss all the jokes. You miss all of the edges. You miss learning how to think.

(I love his point about how AI is not a “tool” for reading the same way a Kindle is a “tool” for reading or “glasses” are tools for reading. Just read the whole thing.)

Lastly:

Tools don't get "misaligned", they don't "go rogue", they don't "escape containment", "conspire" etc.

It just reeks of the offloading of responsibility. “I was mindlessly cutting an apple and the knife in my hand escaped containment and cut my finger. Not my fault!”