Rich Hickey: LLMs Are Not Tools, They're Automation
'AI' Is Not a Tool by Rich Hickey
Rich Hickey argues that calling LLMs 'tools' is a category error. A tool is something you wield—held in hand, controlled, with continuous feedback—that builds expertise. LLMs are automation: you make a request, it acts on its own, and you abdicate the work. Hickey warns that treating automation as a tool ignores intrinsic properties at your peril.
LLMs are not tools with which you write code - they are automation with which you avoid writing code, to which you abdicate writing code.