Rationalization

We're all kind of working our way through the changes AI brings. This morning's Espresso Shots, pointed to this piece by Lex Friedman, which I think captures Michael Becker's view about using AI to "author" his app. Friedman is replying to what seemed to him to be implied criticism of his use of AI in reconstructing game apps, and his perception seemed to be that it was a criticism of his skill or ability as a "programmer" or "developer." What matters to me is that the app was built with humanity. It’s me. Hi. I’m the human. No, it's not "you." It's all of the humanity whose work was confiscated by private corporations without compensation in order to "train" the LLM to provide a for-profit service, which you are using to create something you could not do absent this confiscatory effort, this extraction industry. Friedman sees himself, and likely Becker does as well, as being the "creative force," the authorial source of the idea, the LLM is merely "tooling." Settler farmers…