⁂ L. RhodesMar 22

"Marx identified four dimensions of alienated labor: separation from the product of one's work, from the act of working itself, from other people, and from one's own human capacities. In the context of LLM coding assistants, the second of these is doing most of the work." https://writings.hongminhee.org/2026/03/craft-alienation-llm/

I'm not sure I agree. Or, at least, the loss seems multi-pronged, and it's difficult to assess which of the four dimensions is most involved.

Why craft-lovers are losing their craft

Les Orchard made a quiet observation recently that I haven't been able to shake. Before LLM coding assistants arrived, the split between developers was…

Hong Minhee on Things
Show thread⁂ L. RhodesMar 22
For example, vibecoding seems to shift a lot of the emphasis in software production to code review. The LLM agent produces code, and a human programmer is meant to be extra diligent in checking that code to ensure that it's minimally garbage. Code review has always been a part of collaborative software design, but previously, you were reviewing the work of a human programmer. That's a form of social connection — you see how that person addresses problems, bits of their personality in how they comment or arrange code. At points in the process, you likely discuss the project with them — direct human-to-human contact. If AI is handling the initial production of code, then much of that connection is lost. Not just alienation from the act of working, but also from other people.
Show thread⁂ L. RhodesMar 22

"The tension between craft and efficiency doesn't disappear if you remove capitalism from the picture. LLM coding assistants produce faster results whether anyone is being paid or not, and any community, however it's organized, will eventually have to reckon with what to do with that speed difference."

That tension might remain in non-capitalist societies, but I'm skeptical that a non-capitalist society would ever create something like the multi-purpose LLMs that are causing these disruptions. The sheer amount if capital outlay required to build a monstrosity like OpenAI is so enormous that even our extensive capitalist system has required massive deformation to keep it operative.

Show threadMx. Aria Stewart

@lrhodes Kinda. Compare what's happening with the Chinese models — not a non-capitalist example, but a very differnetly shaped one.

But socialist economies have often invested in management intelligence mechanisms. Look at Chilean cybernetics experiments. There's a fair bit of precedent here for the attitudes that would engender it.

That said I think a _sensible_ ecosystem would be going massively in on solar right now to fuel the AI growth.

Mar 22 at 4:56pmWeb