I'd like to comment on the common "AI is just a tool" thing: I'm a woodworker by training & that means a lot of machines - but almost every craftsperson knows how to do their job with hand tools, or "lesser" machines.
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@jwcph @chirpbirb it's my current goal to figure out how to properly articulate that I can and usually do my systems engineering and data engineering work without the aid of a plagiarism machine in resumes and cover letters and other job application apparatuses.
Unfortunately my best efforts so far have been talking about my work in adversarial prompting and my volunteering as a moderator in an anti-"AI" and anti-cryptocurrency tech community, all of which feels, these days, like I'm just painting a target on my back.
At this stage of the dystopia it overwhelmingly feels like very few actually appreciate these very basic "talents" of actually knowing how to do my job without machine assistance.
@jwcph @chirpbirb and to be honest, at this point? I'd love to pivot my career to consulting as far away from tech as possible. If I could figure out a way not to be involved in the entire industry I suspect my life and satisfaction would be much greater and more reassuring and rewarding for me.
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J jwcph@helvede.net shared this topic
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Similarly, a writer can write without a text editor - just as well, only slower.
AI does with text the same thing it does with images, highly detailed approximates that on closer inspection enter uncanny valley. Having to rewrite an AI text is exactly like rewriting a human written final draft - it basically requires going through the first, second and final drafts. AI only saves time if you don't look too closely and/or aren't familiar with what it's talking about.@Theriac "AI only saves time if you don't look too closely and/or aren't familiar with what it's talking about." 🧑
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@jwcph @chirpbirb and to be honest, at this point? I'd love to pivot my career to consulting as far away from tech as possible. If I could figure out a way not to be involved in the entire industry I suspect my life and satisfaction would be much greater and more reassuring and rewarding for me.
@perigee @chirpbirb This kind of feeling is no small part of why, when I went on a carreer change a few years ago, I decided that whatever my new job would be I would be working primarily with people. Which I do now & it's awesome - even with a pro-AI company policy, my department, which is the odd one out in the org, has a first-line reason to be & remain good at exactly the things AI can never even approach
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T tanyakaroli@expressional.social shared this topic
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RE: https://mstdn.ca/@drikanis/116107120926277506
I'd like to comment on the common "AI is just a tool" thing: I'm a woodworker by training & that means a lot of machines - but almost every craftsperson knows how to do their job with hand tools, or "lesser" machines.
Similarly, a writer can write without a text editor - just as well, only slower.
If loss of a tool = loss of your skill & knowledge, then that tool isn't an asset, it's a liability. You're signing over your ability to do business to whoever sells & maintains that tool.
@jwcph I second this!
In my line of work I (as the IT-dude 
) am implementing AI-tools in our company, because we in that sense then have "control" of what kind of tools the employees are using. But No, it is a false sense of control as we can not control which other AI-tools are in use and by that the whole landscape of AI is our contemporary WILD West, 🫣 🫣 -
T tokeriis@helvede.net shared this topic
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RE: https://mstdn.ca/@drikanis/116107120926277506
I'd like to comment on the common "AI is just a tool" thing: I'm a woodworker by training & that means a lot of machines - but almost every craftsperson knows how to do their job with hand tools, or "lesser" machines.
Similarly, a writer can write without a text editor - just as well, only slower.
If loss of a tool = loss of your skill & knowledge, then that tool isn't an asset, it's a liability. You're signing over your ability to do business to whoever sells & maintains that tool.
@jwcph I’m also not buying into the common “tools are neutral, it’s how you use them that is good or bad” argument. Tools are built for a purpose, and some purposes are bad. Take the medieval rack, it was built for torture, an intrinsically bad purpose. Sure, you *could* use it for something else, like a weird coffee table. But that’s really beside the point. One who designs and builds a rack, is building something for intrinsically bad ends.
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RE: https://mstdn.ca/@drikanis/116107120926277506
I'd like to comment on the common "AI is just a tool" thing: I'm a woodworker by training & that means a lot of machines - but almost every craftsperson knows how to do their job with hand tools, or "lesser" machines.
Similarly, a writer can write without a text editor - just as well, only slower.
If loss of a tool = loss of your skill & knowledge, then that tool isn't an asset, it's a liability. You're signing over your ability to do business to whoever sells & maintains that tool.
@jwcph A similar concern is the ongoing availability of a tool. Building up your workflows around a tool with sustainability issues or one which is solely controlled by subscriptions to one manufacturer has hurt other crafts time and time again. (e.g. Adobe products)
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RE: https://mstdn.ca/@drikanis/116107120926277506
I'd like to comment on the common "AI is just a tool" thing: I'm a woodworker by training & that means a lot of machines - but almost every craftsperson knows how to do their job with hand tools, or "lesser" machines.
Similarly, a writer can write without a text editor - just as well, only slower.
If loss of a tool = loss of your skill & knowledge, then that tool isn't an asset, it's a liability. You're signing over your ability to do business to whoever sells & maintains that tool.
@jwcph @redmer I learned how to draw with pen & ink. There’s no undo, every stroke on the paper is final. It teaches how to draw with confidence, and dealing with mistakes. This is a skill that translates to drawing digitally. And it’s noticeable when artists only learned to draw digitally and are too dependent on digital tools like undo or specific brushes.
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@jwcph I second this!
In my line of work I (as the IT-dude ) am implementing AI-tools in our company, because we in that sense then have "control" of what kind of tools the employees are using. But No, it is a false sense of control as we can not control which other AI-tools are in use and by that the whole landscape of AI is our contemporary WILD West, 🫣 🫣 -
RE: https://mstdn.ca/@drikanis/116107120926277506
I'd like to comment on the common "AI is just a tool" thing: I'm a woodworker by training & that means a lot of machines - but almost every craftsperson knows how to do their job with hand tools, or "lesser" machines.
Similarly, a writer can write without a text editor - just as well, only slower.
If loss of a tool = loss of your skill & knowledge, then that tool isn't an asset, it's a liability. You're signing over your ability to do business to whoever sells & maintains that tool.
@jwcph also from a baseline If you apply a skill to a tool you receice a specific output. Which is just not true and cannot be true for any current LLM/AI technology the randomness IS the key function.
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@perigee @chirpbirb This kind of feeling is no small part of why, when I went on a carreer change a few years ago, I decided that whatever my new job would be I would be working primarily with people. Which I do now & it's awesome - even with a pro-AI company policy, my department, which is the odd one out in the org, has a first-line reason to be & remain good at exactly the things AI can never even approach
@jwcph @chirpbirb can you talk more about your career change?
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@jwcph Funnily enough I wanted to kind of challenge you with saying that it's unlikely a programmer would be able to write a complex program "by hand" (using assembly) but... a sufficiently motivated programmer probably could. It would be an absolutely miserable experience, you'd have to invent a lot from the first principles, but in the end it's all system calls and the documentation is out there.
The point was, that vibe coders can't "code" at all without AI. And pre-AI, people already wrote software. So ... What was your point again?
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The point was, that vibe coders can't "code" at all without AI. And pre-AI, people already wrote software. So ... What was your point again?
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RE: https://mstdn.ca/@drikanis/116107120926277506
I'd like to comment on the common "AI is just a tool" thing: I'm a woodworker by training & that means a lot of machines - but almost every craftsperson knows how to do their job with hand tools, or "lesser" machines.
Similarly, a writer can write without a text editor - just as well, only slower.
If loss of a tool = loss of your skill & knowledge, then that tool isn't an asset, it's a liability. You're signing over your ability to do business to whoever sells & maintains that tool.
> "If loss of a tool = loss of your skill & knowledge, then that tool isn't an asset, it's a liability."
So, dump trucks are a liability?
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@art_codesmith @fedithom @jwcph this is an interesting point and maybe reflective of why llm adoption has been somewhat less controversial among programmers than writers (or woodworkers); the vast majority of programmers already had a near-total dependence on tools, so another level of abstraction is less of a bridge too far
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RE: https://mstdn.ca/@drikanis/116107120926277506
I'd like to comment on the common "AI is just a tool" thing: I'm a woodworker by training & that means a lot of machines - but almost every craftsperson knows how to do their job with hand tools, or "lesser" machines.
Similarly, a writer can write without a text editor - just as well, only slower.
If loss of a tool = loss of your skill & knowledge, then that tool isn't an asset, it's a liability. You're signing over your ability to do business to whoever sells & maintains that tool.
@jwcph yes. That's also why ludite were breaking machine. It's not like they were breaking an electric hole maker because they wanted to keep using the hand crank ones. They were breaking tools that required no knowledge of how to do the work to be used. Put a piece of wood on one side, turn a crank, get a door on the other side.
Nothing to learn.
If you learn nothing, no reason to pay you more as time pass, no reason to keep you if you make trouble.
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@art_codesmith @fedithom @jwcph this is an interesting point and maybe reflective of why llm adoption has been somewhat less controversial among programmers than writers (or woodworkers); the vast majority of programmers already had a near-total dependence on tools, so another level of abstraction is less of a bridge too far
But can we keep the distinction between using something as a tool and using something as the only means to get any work done? @jwcph
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But can we keep the distinction between using something as a tool and using something as the only means to get any work done? @jwcph
@fedithom @art_codesmith @jwcph agreed that this seems like a meaningful distinction; im saying that for the vast majority of programmers, compilers fall into the category of 'things without which its not possible to get any work done'. writing any machine code at all is a fairly rare skill, and developing non-trivial applications using it is almost non-existent outside of certain specialized sub-domains. this seems to make programming unlike many other arts/crafts, where its the other way around (only certain specific sub-domains basically require specialized tools; many others are doable by hand by most practitioners)
