The Principle of Least AI

Why AI Alternatives Matter AI is prone to problems affecting its output: hallucinations, incompleteness, inconsistency, and bias. AI usage is costly, and the popular free services might require expensive paid plans or downgrade to sponsored light versions at any time. Don't Hit Submit! Ethical issues aside, lazily using AI to often and too early won't make you a better coder or more creative. And AI companies don't only take your money, they're also after your data – and your time! Techniques like Rubber Duck Debugging (internal dialog development preparing questions and anticipating answers without actually asking anyone) are alternatives to AI for coding and creativity. Don't Ask Suggestive Questions If your question implies a certain answer, asking only makes sense for falsification. AI (and other people) will hopefully tell you when you're completely wrong. Only that AI often doesn't. Current models are trained for flattery and verbosity. Don't Ask Why What a waste of time! Try to ask open questions, and always prefer asking "how", not "why". Stay Skeptical Don't believe anything without a factful proof or a recent, reputable, relevant source. GEO, the AI-agent-targeting variant of search engine optimization, already succeeded to gaslight AI and poison its answers with fake sources biased towards commercial results. AI seems much more gullible than real people. Source: The Shape of Enshittification: Books That No Longer Get Read, An Internet That No Longer Gets Surfed, & The End of Social Media As We Know It.. Principle of Least Power Remember the rule of least power : don't rent a truck when you need a mini van. Don't use AI when you need autocomplete, web search, or a tutorial! I sketched a pyramid of thinking, creativity, and information retrieval again. As you can guess, AI assistants are "on top" as the most costly exception, while the broad basis should be traditional groundwork. Here's a cute AI-slop adaption: Source: Hand-Crafted Creative Counter-Culture