The part about "It's just a tool." that always bugged me is exactly this.
A Hammer is a tool ... a carpentry sub-contractor is not.
A Hammer is a tool ... a carpentry sub-contractor is not.
If human - the sub-contractor isn't a tool, if robot - it is. Similar to how a human digging trenches isn't a tool but a tractor-trencher is, even if autonomous.
It’s not about whether the abstraction is human or not, it’s the level of abstraction you can operate at. Using hand tools vs power tools as a bad analogy: you can use either and still become a good carpenter. If you have someone build your cabinets for you that’s a totally different level of abstraction and you don’t actually have any carpentry skills or knowledge.
I'm not making a mistake, you're confusing abstract "abstractions" with concrete humans. Some humans aren't much into abstractions but that doesn't make them less human. LLMs manipulate human-created abstractions, similar to other software, but that doesn't make them human at all.
> Using hand tools vs power tools as a bad analogy
You're confused about my analogy too, here's what I said: "a human digging trenches isn't a tool but a tractor-trencher is, even if autonomous". Robotic, autonomous tractor-trenchers do manipulate abstractions and dig trenches but that doesn't make them human.
So he purposely narrows the definition of a tool, and exclude autonomous things from it. He also excludes passive things like the drive-through window, which isn't actively being manipulated by anyone, but just serves as a part of allowing you to get food through the wall while remaining in your car. Yes, dictionary definition would say a drive-through window is a tool as well, but saying that is not very useful to reason about how a drive-through window and a hammer actually relate or differ.
If you start to instead think of autonomous things as automation, and things that are more extension of the human expression or movement as tools. You can start to better understand those things and that using one over the other changes your experience and what you gain or lose in the process even if your use of them results in a similar outcome.
You can define "tool" anyway you like but for the purpose of this conversation "tool" is anything that can do some kind of work but isn't a human. That is, start with defining "human" and then consider the non-biological entities that do work for us, there's no need for defining "tool". Then ask yourself, is an autonomous car/tractor/drone/etc a human?
Further, consider the simple fact that "human work" is an accidental chore reluctantly performed for the needs of human survival but it doesn't define what human is in any way (animals do work too). Hopefully, this can help you to stop conflating "work" and "human".
If we're discussing the article, than we should be using the definition put forward in the article.
>If human - the sub-contractor isn't a tool, if robot - it is.
This is a miscategorization to me.
A hammer is a tool, a carpentry sub-contractor is a system that uses tools -- whether the sub-contractor involves humans or robots doesnt matter here.
You sound like you're anthropomorphizing it. A hammer is a tool, yes, but a complex conveyor belt of "smart" hammers is still a tool. It's not a "sub-contractor" - you can't blame the belt when it starts hammering things the wrong way; you can't sue it; you can't reason with it; you can't punish it. You're still responsible for the outcome, thus it is a tool, because you're the one wielding it, using and operating it. But then you have to draw the line between a "tool" and "automation", that's what Rich is doing here. But that line is also, soooo debatable. My own usage of my harness changes from task to task, multiple times a day. Sometimes it's pure automation, sometimes it is absolutely a tool.