Tony Wallace

Every Reason Why I Hate AI and You Should Too maybe it's anti-innovation, maybe it's just avoiding hype. But one thing is clear, I'm completely done with hearing about AI.

Every Reason Why I Hate AI and You Should Too

malwaretech.com/2025/08/ever...

If you're going to send me something written by an LLM then save us all time and resources and just send me your prompt instead. I'll value a text that says "Heartfelt condolence message with reference to a list of events" more, because this way I at least actually know what you were thinking

You can choose not to use AI, but you can't choose not to have dumbfucks using AI ruin your entire day.

Ability to use html and css more or less properly, and attitude towards it, is the one thing I will unabashedly judge web developers on. These are the fundamentals of the craft.

Management pressures people into using these frameworks but if you actually think you *need* them, you have work to do.

Pyramid with levels labeled from the bottom up: - not having to use Teams - not having to use Jira - not having to use Salesforce - food shelter water - money love etc.

The real hierarchy of needs

5 years ago I used eleventy. Now I’d do a simple blog with fastapi and htmx because I miss having a posting interface.

I have this weird theory that it's still probably a good idea to know what you're doing.

technology is hell

Prime Cuts #4: “Love Power Peace” (Polydor, 1992), James Brown - Ken Vandermark This series of essays, that explore the ideas of sequencing and montage between two pieces of recorded music or two film scenes, continues with another one of my favorite albums: [...]

The neck-snapping, instantaneous transition from "Brother Rapp" to "Ain't It Funky Now" on James Brown's Love Power Peace: Live In Paris 1971 is one of the hardest things you'll ever hear. Ken Vandermark writes about it here:
kenvandermark.com/prime-cuts-4...

This. There’s a lot of nostalgia for popular music from past decades but what people remember as being popular doesn’t always align with what was actually popular. Go look up the Billboard charts and weep. 😬

I don't 'refuse to use' AI, I just don't use AI; in the same way that I don't shoplift, or plagiarise other people's books - it requires no effort of will, it's just not something I would think of doing

I counter your "Every software developer should have side projects" with "Every employer should give developers time in the working week to learn proactively and try new stuff". Otherwise we end up with a monoculture.

And... well... we don't need to imagine what that might look like.

This is why professional ethics matter. This is blatantly unethical, and if the allegations are true, the engineers responsible should have refused.

But computing does not have a sufficiently strong culture of ethical duty and professional responsibility.

From NYT article about the increasing use of AI in the classroom: “Writing is one of the most challenging tasks for students, which is why it is so tempting for some to ask A.I. to do it for them. In turn, A.I. can be useful for teachers who would like to assign more writing, but are limited in their time to grade it.”

Why even have a brain, any ideas, any ability to express them, any kind of communication with other people, any desire to solve problems or invent anything, any reason to learn, any use for your eyes or your heart, or any reason to teach or create

Sometimes the best course of action is to let people learn from own experience.

I don't want to be a naysayer about vibe coding.

So yes, go ahead and cancel the Calendly subscription for $400/mo for your team and use your vibe coded solution

Let's talk in a year on learnings

This is another obviously-rightwing facet of genAI tech. Erasing the worker and elevating the owner of the means of production as not merely the owner of the output, but its sole progenitor. Recognizing labor gives it power, which is unacceptable.

The funding bubble surrounding "AI" might pop sooner rather than later because of tariff shenanigans, but without a corresponding myth "pop" among those who are using it as an oracle for everything, I worry that the continuing legend and lowered interest rates will re-inflate it promptly

Not all processes can or should be automated in government.

DOGE is dodgy. We don’t want this here fellow Canadians.

The 15th season

Maybe what makes software dev so vulnerable to "AI" is that the industry's left the reliability goal wide open. Defect rates few other markets would stand for are already tolerated.

If software had to work in the same way microwave ovens have to work, nobody would let an LLM near production code.

Also, LLM crawlers are wreaking havoc on websites, eating up tons of server resources as they hoover up content and forcing the costs onto the hosts and developers, who are therefore basically paying for the privilege of having their content stolen.

This is exactly what I have noticed in my work. They claim they use it responsibly and check the outputs, but they also say it did "a great job" for something they have no idea how to do. How do they know it did a great job then?

Catchier than expected

What is it about moderately smart people that makes them completely oblivious to how overhyped current AI is?

Styling HTML form controls is something web designers & developers have wanted for years! My team is working on a solution — apply `appearance: base` and switch to a new interoperable consistent default control. Then override it using new pseudo-elements. See the details: drafts.csswg.org/css-forms/

Sean Speer on X: "Canada desperately needs its own DOGE There has been a lot of anti-DOGE commentary in Canada in recent days. Some of it raises legitimate issues—including its reporting requirements to Congress or the limits of relying on external advisers—with the Elon Musk-led exercise. But" / X Canada desperately needs its own DOGE There has been a lot of anti-DOGE commentary in Canada in recent days. Some of it raises legitimate issues—including its reporting requirements to Congress or the limits of relying on external advisers—with the Elon Musk-led exercise. But

Truly don't understand how anyone can look at what's happening inside the US government right now and think, yeah, we should do something like that.

x.com/Sean_Speer/s...

So, so very dodgy.
We do not want this here fellow Canadians.

Our tax agency already does a robust job of reviewing tax files for over-payments (fraud == deliberate misleading to benefit).

You do not want techbros all up in your private tax data in the name of "efficiency".