# 'AI' is Not a Tool

By Saurabh Kumar · TIL note, Oct 13, 2026 · Tags: ai

Source: https://saurabh-kumar.com/til/1791892800/

Rich Hickey's ["'AI' is Not a Tool"](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-tool-rich-hickey-kjl8e) vs Huahai Yang's ["AI Is a Tool. Using It Well Takes Skill."](https://yyhh.org/blog/2026/10/ai-is-a-tool). 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](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0005109883900468) 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](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50063427): a [Las Vegas algorithm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.