04/28/2026
My great-grandfather's brace and bit does exactly one thing. Every time. No updates. No optimization. No learning from previous sessions. You turn it, it bores a hole.
For the first time in human history, that sentence is no longer true of tools.
AI systems aren't tools in any sense our ancestors would recognize. They change based on how you use them. They optimize toward whatever you reward. They get better at what you do, and quietly worse at what you don't.
That's either the most powerful thing that's ever happened to knowledge work, or the most dangerous, depending entirely on whether you're paying attention to what you're reinforcing.
The craftsmen who came before us didn't have to think about that. We do.
