There's no such thing as Just a Tool
https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/no-such-thing-as-just-a-toolOpen linkView original on sh.itjust.worksSyndicated from the fediverse. Read and engage on the original instance.
View original on sh.itjust.workshttps://deadsimpletech.com/blog/no-such-thing-as-just-a-toolOpen linkView original on sh.itjust.works
10 replies
The "just a tool" refrain gets on my nerves because of the implication...
A photocopier is also just a tool... But nobody's delusional enough to think you can write an essay using a photocopier as an "assistive tool" without compromising your claim of authorship. But I'm expected to overlook when someone says they made an "AI assisted" artwork/novel/article, as if I'm too dumb to know that could well mean you didn't actually make it.
they used AI as a search tool and verified all the sources
feeling better now? too dumb to understand?
That's what it could mean, but you'd be foolish to assume that.
This is every bit as obnoxious as when they try and claim that a photographer doesn’t take a picture, tHe cAmErA dOeS!
Or how a musician that records analog instruments plugged into using digital audio software isn’t creating music.
They’re desperate to defend their hackish soulless content.
AI is basically a drive through window library where the books are stolen and the librarian answers your questions about the subjects covered in those books by using a ouija board to composed the answers. Maybe the librarian would be one of those special people with photographic memory who turns their eyes upwards pretending to comoute something in their eye sockets before answering. But every so often they get a twitch or a full body convultion.
appreciate this article, it's a difficult argument to make to some people
This is a better discussion of this topic, imo: https://www.frank.computer/blog/2025/05/just-a-tool.html.
Really good read. Making the car comparison and all its effects hammers (pun intended) down that "just a tool" can be an incredibly complex thing that needs a lot of variables to work properly. A hammer is a simple tool, a computer is not simple - there's a global logistics chain that allows their existence - and neither is AI.
Emphasis mine. I've been thinking about that a lot. Everything is about being more efficient, more productive. Fuck that shit, I wanna enjoy life.
I tried to make that exact argument when I was buying a hammer from Homebase but they said fading into the background of an observing consciousness is not the same as merging into a single entity with it.
it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.