⁂ L. Rhodes3d ago

"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 threadAda Worcester 🏳️‍⚧️
@lrhodes the thing i find most striking here is the article assumes these things do, in fact, work well, when my experience is that in addition to the alienation, they don’t even function. which only adds to the despair, as someone with pride in their work: the machine replacing the thing i enjoy both takes that away, and doesn’t even get acceptable results in exchange.
Mar 22 at 7:22pmWeb
Show threadAda Worcester 🏳️‍⚧️3d ago
@lrhodes in short, my despair has not just been the alienation of labor, although that is a distinct part of it, but the revelation that even the fruits of my labor were not truly valued -- the performance was all that mattered to most people. if it's broken, if it doesn't work, if it literally isn't fit for purpose, oh well. it was made with ai quickly instead of human hands, and apparently the performance of work was the thing that mattered, not the actual act nor the results of the act.