AI code and software craft

Summary

AI code and software craft Jan 25 2026 Much has been said about audio, video and text "slop": low-quality, AI-generated content that has proliferated on the internet since the release of publicly-accessible AI models. Garbage content has always existed online, but the novelty of AI is that it has made its generation orders of magnitude less labor-intensive. For anyone who lacks a discerning eye, or is doing some task where discernment simply does not matter, AI has become a sufficient replacement for human hands. Jacques Ellul describes his concept of "technique" as the reduction of activity to a set of efficient means to a measured and defined end — a way of thinking dominant in modernity. Technique is the regime under which many things are produced online: an Instagram reel, YouTube video, blog post, and so on is "good" if it elicits as much "engagement" as possible with as little effort as possible. This is technique as a totalizing force, destroying any sense of craft, dignity, or human freedom. It doesn't really matter what is being made, the purpose of the endeavor is how much its creation is viewed, how much revenue it generates. Obsession with metrics and outcomes erodes anything intangible about a creative effort, like craft, beauty, or delight. Taking music as an example, through the lens of technique, music is "good" if it gets a lot of "plays". One can compare, for example, the operating models of Bandcamp and Spotify, both of which have platform dynamics and a set of values that have led to the production of certain kinds of music. For Bandcamp, its focus on full albums and personal curation contributed to the indie music boom of the 2010s/2020s and uplifted artists like Car Seat Headrest, Mitski, Alex G, Phoebe Bridgers, and others. For Spotify, its playlist and algorithmic recommendation based model has spawned a wave of bland, algorithmically-targeted muzak. This is because Spotify's model doesn't care about music, it cares about metrics: music is si...