Cory DoctorowToday's threads (a thread)
Inside: Process knowledge; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/08/process-knowledge-vs-bosses/
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Syntaxxor 🏳️⚧️ 
@pluralistic There's an excellent point at the end here that I never really considered before:
"And of course, the people who value process knowledge the least are the AI bros who think you can replace skilled workers with a chatbot trained on the things they say and write down, as though that somehow captured everything they know."Online posts and chats and documentation and everything else a chatbot might train off of are generally written to explain the output and structure of a thing to someone else. And while that generally means they'll be on the simpler side, easier to digest, it also is usually a very lossy process. I'm most familiar with how it works with programming, but I'm sure it applies to anything technical enough. And by "technical" I mean basically anything which involves process knowledge. So most positions outside the Board and the C-Suite.Explaining how something works rarely gets into the nitty gritty of exactly why each coding decision was made. Yet that's by far the most valuable thing to understand about any given piece of code. Those important conversations of imparting knowledge will happen in far more personal contexts. Usually through word-of-mouth, which means it never gets documented. Because how can it be documented? Even when it's talked about online, in things like those tumblr posts, it often only scratches the surface of the sheer depth of knowledge needed to actually do something.
The best teacher, the only one whose lessons can really be trusted, is experience. And a chatbot that can only be trained by reading existing text will never be able to learn from experience. Thus, it can't really be trusted to actually make correct, informed decisions based on real knowledge of what's needed in a specific context.
</rant>
AethonI agree and think this has always been the case. The process is one thing, the skills and knowledge to apply it can only be learned through experience.
Example- I have some reprints of 19th blacksmithing manuals. And although they might describe the process of welding an axle, or forging a wrench, it always assumes that, as the reader, you know what a welding heat is, about the correct temperature for drawing down, how to make the tools required to make the tool (first forge an eye punch of 1 inch) and so forth.
If you have never got your hands dirty doing the work, whether smithing, working front line support or deep in the code base (something I cannot do but admire), you simply don’t know.
And as you say, from that lack of knowledge comes the ignorance that leads to a misunderstanding of value and need.
j_bertolotti@tempusfelix Just think about all the implied knowledge in any cookbook. Recipes can be compressed to a page or two only because they assume you already know how to do a lot of the stuff they are talking about. If you have no idea how to cook, no amount of cookbooks will ever help you.
@syntaxxor @pluralistic
@syntaxxor @pluralistic
Space Invader@j_bertolotti @tempusfelix @syntaxxor @pluralistic
A friend was learning to cook. He read the instructions on o packet of pasta: “Bring a pot of water to boil”
He filled it to the brim!
A relatively harmless lesson, but a perfect example of assumed knowledge. (And yes, he’s much better now)
Steve DeGroof 📚🛸Hey, could've been worse. At least he didn't start off by looking up the boiling point of stainless steel. 😄
@degroof thankfully, he did not own a welding torch!
Spoofer3@spaceinvader @j_bertolotti @tempusfelix @syntaxxor @pluralistic
This reminds me of the grade school project to write the instructions down for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich, followed by a very literal interpretation of those instructions.
I learned to ride horses and I read a lot of books related to it. My friend said I'd never learn to ride from the book. My conclusions after becoming a fairly accomplished horseman, 1) is that the horse (and time on task) is the best teacher, however, the books were what allowed me to expand well beyond anything that I would have discovered myself in my lifetime, 2) there was so much missing from every book though not the same parts, so important to read lots of them from lots of perspectives, 3) and at the beginning, I thought I'd write the book that had all the important pieces in it, but realized that it was impossible and that actually, the books did a pretty good job covering the basis after all.