'AI' is Not a Tool

Rich Hickey’s "‘AI’ is Not a Tool" vs Huahai Yang’s “AI Is a Tool. Using It Well Takes Skill.”. Hickey: a tool is something you wield, and wielding is where expertise comes from, so an LLM is automation you abdicate work to. Yang: a compiler also works unattended and is still a tool; the line is skilled use vs delegating without oversight. Arguing over the label is a dead end. What matters is which skill survives.

• Hickey’s best line: you are “only a software update from everything you’ve ’learned’ being rendered obsolete.” Model quirks and prompt recipes expire. Verification, choosing context and domain judgment carry over to the next model.
• Bainbridge’s Ironies of Automation said it in 1983: automate the work and the operator is left monitoring, which needs the skill they stopped practicing. My rule: do the work, then ask the model. Don’t ask the model instead.
• Best reply to “LLMs are slot machines” in the HN thread: a Las Vegas algorithm is random but always correct; only the runtime varies. Randomness plus a verifier gets you accuracy. Without the verifier you’re just pulling the lever.