What Is A Tool?

I'll say here at the top this isn't a well-researched essay or a grand point I'm making. I'm just thinking aloud. What is a tool? As in, what defines a tool? I consider myself an artist and a craftsperson, so tools are pretty important to me. Not that I am a wizened veteran, but I'm lucky to be doing this full-time for a while now, and I've never had to consider this question. I find AI programs repulsive, in the literal sense of the term, in that I am repulsed by them. I am negatively polarized to their presence, I've never touched a coding tool or a chat bot, and what little AI is forced upon me such as in search results I avoid as much as my frail human perception allows. Setting aside the score of dealbreaking reasons to not use AI, purely on the level of craft and art, I do not want to use any of these 'tools', and lately I've been thinking about why that is exactly. To that end it's been useful for me to turn in my head what I consider a tool, and what repulses me about AI with…