Quoting Tarn Adams
- ID
- 20323
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 02 Sep 2026, 1:01 AM
- Fetched
- 02 Sep 2026, 2:08 AM
- Provider
- Simon Willison
- Category
- developer-ai
- Original URL
- https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/1/tarn-adams/
- Source URL
- https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/
Summary
- Score
- 2.0
- Created
- 02 Sep 2026, 2:08 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_codersai_ml_learners
What happened
Simon Willison shares a quote from Tarn Adams, co-creator of Dwarf Fortress, joking that he was forced to stop using the term 'dwarf AI' and instead call it 'dwarf behavior,' because the letters 'AI' were 'taken from him.' It's a lighthearted commentary on how the term AI has become overloaded.
Why it matters
There is no actionable takeaway here; it's a one-line joke about terminology inflation in the AI era. Useful only as a brief icebreaker or segue into a more substantive discussion about how the word 'AI' has lost precision in product marketing.
Discussion angle
How the broadening of 'AI' to cover everything from LLMs to simple game logic makes it harder to communicate what a system actually does — and what terms builders should use instead.