'AI' Is Not a Tool by Rich Hickey
- ID
- 34865
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 13 Oct 2026, 2:00 AM
- Fetched
- 13 Oct 2026, 10:48 PM
- Provider
- Hacker News
- Category
- dev-community
- Original URL
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-tool-rich-hickey-kjl8e
- Source URL
- https://hnrss.org/best
Summary
- Score
- 6.5
- Created
- 13 Oct 2026, 10:49 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_codersai_agent_userssaas_founders
What happened
In an Oct 12, 2026 LinkedIn post, Rich Hickey argues that 'tool' should keep a distinguishing meaning — something you wield, held in hand, with power, control, continuous direction and sensory feedback — and that on those criteria LLMs qualify as automation rather than tools, because they are not predictable, reliable, deterministic, or of bounded function. He compares an LLM to a drive-thru window, which is 'automation for avoiding cooking,' and says LLMs are 'automation with which you avoi[d]' writing code (the excerpt cuts off mid-sentence). The piece drew 288 points and 153 comments on Hacker News.
Why it matters
If you ship or buy AI coding assistance, Hickey's list is a checklist of what you are not getting: predictable, reliable, deterministic, bounded-function behaviour with continuous feedback. The practical implication is that verification stays with the human, because 'expertise' in his framing is built by wielding, not by delegating — so review and test gates around generated code aren't optional overhead. For founders pitching an LLM product, calling it a 'tool' invites exactly this objection; the text gives no pricing, version, or benchmark data to settle it either way.
Discussion angle
Ask the room to name one thing they currently delegate to an LLM where losing 'continuous direction and feedback' has actually cost them — a bug shipped, a review skipped, a design decision made blind — and whether that changed how they scope what they hand over.