Tabs, spaces, hand tools, and seat belts: a response

I read the blog post mentioned in the title recently, and found it a reasonable and coherent articulation of a certain viewpoint about AI, and indeed about programming (even society) in general. It presents its arguments clearly and sensibly. It has an ambivalence to it that suggests consideration. It is well-cited and well-written.1 You should read it. (in fact, you should read it before the rest of this blog post, or I’ll make even less sense than otherwise).

This makes me extremely angry.

As I take the opposite viewpoint from this point, it feels only appropriate that I should present it in the opposite manner: that is, unreasonably, incoherently, unclearly, insensibly, poorly considered and indeed inconsiderately.2 Enjoy.

(deep breath in)

You do you. Use AI. Use AI to use AI for you. Industrialise your work. Use Windows. Use a Mac. It just works. Sip rocket fuel. Go blazingly fast. Use Go. Use Rust. Use a seat belt. Ignore the speed limit. Buy a car. Buy a bigger car. Buy an SUV. Buy power tools. Buy a cabinet from IKEA. Buy plastic furniture. Buy a hamburger from McDonald’s. Move to the city. Buy a flat. Buy a house off of the back of a truck. Buy a machine for living in off the back of a truck. 3D-print a machine for living in off the back of a truck. Work smarter. Work faster. Work harder. Work better. Get promoted. Get fired. Get a job at a McDonald’s. Expand an email from a list of bullet points. Condense an email to a subtly different list of bullet points. Write in less than 140 280 300 characters 6 15 60 seconds. Write to your representative. Don’t write. Don’t vote. Be a world citizen. Be political.3 Befriend your computer, not your neighbour. Talk to a psychic. Keep the lights on at night. Work all night. Be legible. Take protein supplements. Drink protein shakes. Invent new species of animal. Eat new species of animal. Eat only one species of animal (the rest are superfluous). Invent a nutrition pill. Live efficiently.4 Be logical. Throw old things out. Throw old ideas out. Reject religion.5 Embrace growth. Be an optimist. Love doesn’t scale.6 Become a superman.

(deep breath out)

So I ran to the Lord,
I said “Lord, hide me,
Please hide me, please help me”,
All on that day

He said “Child, where were you
When you oughta have been prayin’?”
I said “Lord, Lord, hear me prayin’,
Lord, Lord, hear me prayin’,
Lord, Lord, hear me prayin’”,

All on that day

Anything can be automated. I had hoped, we had hoped, that by being the ones in control of the automation we could run from it. We ran to the rock, and the rock would not hide us. We ran to the river, and the river was bleeding. We ran to the sea, and the sea was boiling. In the end, anything can be automated.

Still, I don’t have to be happy about it.

I don’t want to be part of an industrial process. I don’t want to maximise shareholder value. I don’t want to have my work intensified. I don’t want to automate quality. I don’t want, frankly, to have to integrate with society. I don’t want a job, I want to work. I want to make something perfect. I want to smash looms. I want to believe that there is something left that cannot be optimised, costed, profit-and-lossed. I want to work with what I love. I want love to scale. I’m scared. I want to go home.

Why must code be the only thing done by hand?

  1. I especially appreciate the use of Oxford commas. They better reflect the rhythm of human speech. ↩
  2. And, of course, without Oxford commas. Here, there is no pause (and thus no comma) because the last two items (poorly considered and inconsiderately) are closely related. Is this correct? Hell no! Do I give a shit? ibid. ↩
  3. I find it funny – but in a certain sense quite appropriate – that the person who informed a great deal of my thinking about AI is also the person who wrote a really good book about typography that you should pay for, which has infinitely improved the design of this blog and indeed served as a catalyst for finally making it in the first place. ↩
  4. In theory, the three sentences before those two also belong in that link, but that would be an absurdly long link, which I would rather avoid. That book, though, is excellent. A quote for your attention: “First, I am an amateur. If that strikes you as disappointing, consider how much in error you are, and how the error is entirely of your own devising.” ↩
  5. Despite what the article says, Andrew Kelley is quite a good (if sometimes inappropriately rude – but then again, people still use Linux) person with a lot of good ideas. This is not one of them. Religion has produced certain good things, just as atheism has produced certain evils. The choice, as always, is and must be yours. ↩
  6. This guy, on the other hand, is not a good person. This article is good reading in how shockingly, obviously, evil it and its ideas are. In any case, perhaps love does scale. ↩