the argument "but you're also no longer using a fountain pen to write" against hand-written code is silly to me. i think close to 100% of people would rather read a short story written in fountain pen by octavia e. butler or william gibson than something that a rando ai-prompted? they could even take their time, why would it need to be rushed?
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@mntmn I am still using a fountain pen to write, btw.
@mntmn The medium of information entry doesn't change the content of the information. You can type the same text more quickly than writing with a fountain pen, but you're still writing it. The "but you're no longer using a fountain pen to write" comparison is apples to oranges, since with an LLM, sure it comes up with information faster than typing it, but you are not creating the information.
@mntmn I am actually using two fountain pens.
@mntmn It is a nonsense phrase, empty of thought and meaning. Literacy is a technology that is unlike tools. It is an augmentation of the human mind, and there are no other technologies like it.
If you use a typewriter to write, you are still responsible for 100% of what is written.
These pro-AI zealots can't come up with a single logical argument.
@mntmn <Edsger Dijkstra has entered the chat>
@mntmn I am using a fountain pen to write.
@mntmn You're no longer ploughing the ground by hand. This is true, but does it relate with anything else than a farmer's work?
False analogies help to construct falsely rational ideas all the time. An advance in technology doesn't mean a forced change is needed.
By the way, LLM tools aren't an advance in technology either, but just an advance in marketing.
@mntmn One of the more obvious reasons to accelerate the AI data center build-out timeline, is to counter the increasingly destabilizing economies around the world, due to fossil fuels effects - of which, fossil fuels is the main driver of said data centers.
And since US politicians write policy for these industries that supply this current abuse, the coalition of #TechBros with a complicit grifter President, is timely in its execution of said abuse-of-power.
Coalesce people to #BoycottAI
@mntmn I've just discovered the word "fountain pen". So funny!
In french we name this " feather pen " :)
@mntmn My about 15 fountain pens also disagree with that argument. And, as an active researcher, I don't use AI for anything.
@mntmn I use a mechanical pencil to draft 6502 assembly code for my Commodore 64, but you can have my fountain pens when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
@mntmn Fountain pen gang 😀
@mntmn Yeah, that's not an actual argument and misses the entire point of putting a sentient brain to a task vs. statistics soup…
@mntmn i don't use a fountain pen, but i do often use a pen. often when i want to make sense of something or learn something new, as i find writing helps me to connect thoughts, and the extra time taken to physically note something down often helps me remember it. i may be able to type faster with a keyboard, but that presumes that the goal of writing is to output as many words as possible and not an intrinsic human behaviour
@mntmn ... Yeah, my partner and I definitely _do_ use fashion pens to write. They are so much better than ballpoint if you take care of them.
And you can look at woodworking to see that new, fancy tools don't immediately make old hand tools obsolete.
@mntmn I take all my technical notes, to-do lists, etc. in fountain pen while I write code, it's a surprisingly good pairing. Writing by hand makes me think differently than writing on a computer. Just because a newer tool exists, doesn't mean the old one is automatically obsolete! That's just bizarre tech-bro brain.
@mntmn if I remember correctly, neal stephenson is hand-writing his 800 pages tomes.
@mntmn funnily enough I would reply to that statement: well yeah started to used them recently! (and being left-handed is trickier too 😁 )
Yeah this is the usual argument they say. But the problem is that if something is an innovation doesn't mean that it has to be good. And these "stochastic parrots" will do more harm than good. Making people lose basic skills, killing creativity, and vomiting a huge amount of mediocre quality products (polluted with wrong content/information)....
@mntmn The fountain pen equivalent in coding would be handwritten assembly
@JmbFountain no, that is a category error
@mntmn :glances down: wait, I wasn't supposed to be writing code with a fountain pen? 😅 I find it efficient for code architecture tasks honestly.
When I started reading Marko Kloos I remember that he wrote his books in longhand with a good pen.
He has switched to text processing now but he still keeps a warm relationship with good pens https://www.markokloos.com/?cat=13
@mntmn Also if you're using a word processor you're doing the same thing people did with a goose feather back in the day. It's more convenient, but you still think what you want to write and you write the words.
Using AI is a categorically different thing.
@mntmn Attaching a used BIC pen to a vibrator would be more similar to using a slop extruder, and yet more creative.
@mntmn "but you're also no longer using a fountain pen to write" In fact, I am. 