That AI Temptation

I continue low-intensity work on Quamina; among other things, it benefits my my mental health. At the moment there’s this little voice at the back of my brain that keeps saying “This would be a great job for Claude.” So far I’m ignoring it, but the internal conversation is worth sharing. Disclosure I’m not a GenAI expert, have never relied on it for any substantial piece of work. However, I’ve seen plenty of PRs with LLM fingerprints, and I follow a whole lot of indie devs who are in it up to their elbows. It seems to me that a pretty clear picture emerges of what it can and can’t do, where the wins and losses are. This essay reflects that picture but maybe I’m just wrong, in which case I’ll confess my errors. Negative externalities For me (and I’m not alone), the biggest issue isn’t what GenAI can and can’t do, it’s the ethical and economic discomforts. This technology is being peddled by terrible people who are rich and whose goal is to get richer. It’s bought and deployed by…