This is required reading if you’re trying to wrap your head around whether AI is “conscious”. Our brains are not computers. Our consciousness does not arise from an algorithm. The metaphor to explain ourselves using information processing has now turned into a reason we convince each other an LLM is alive, might have rights, and be a sovereign entity. From there stems all the lazy parts of the technology argument - we couldn’t have sandboxed those agents that attacked hugging face! It’s too smart! It’s a foreign intelligence! Or - you didn’t need to, because nobody (including the folks responsible for ensuring the models don’t do things they shouldn’t during training) can be responsible for understanding it in the first place! If that’s true - how could we possibly be responsible for building it in a way that is safe? The longer I build practical, useful, every day technology with AI that solves real problems, the more convinced I become that the root of our tumult comes primarily from that first moment we turned it into an unknowable entity, rather than a fabulously useful way for computers to solve problems they couldn’t before. aeon.co/essays/your-brain-do…

The creator of rails (@dhh, if you've been living under a rock) saying 3% of the code he writes/generates is Ruby, and they're rebuilding HEY as native applications with a rust backend should tell you so much about the changes that are already happening. If what you cared about was ergonomics, developer happiness, productivity, and individual creativity (the things he has touted his entire career) - the single best way to get all those things today is to learn how to build (for yourself and for others) with agents. We see this every day in our own work, and with folks using swamp. The distance between "I need something that works like this" and "here it is" is so short. Here's a quote from yesterday on discord: "I still haven't read a single line of any code created by my agent in the swamp ecosystem it's excellent even that is a step-change in my book, it's intent->solution" This works because we put engineering effort into making the harnesses you work with produce high quality code out of the box. They don't have to read a single line of the code because the code works, and when it doesn't, it's trivial for the agent to fix it. Because the patterns are consistent, the boundaries are clear, and the software it produces is well factored. We make the distance between your idea and seeing the outcome as short as possible. The same is true for your own application. The sooner you start building the machine that builds the machine, the faster the loop will be between your creative spark and the outcome you're looking for. It's not giving all your engineering skill over to the agent - it's putting all that skill to work creating the system that allows your creativity to be expressed quickly, and to use that speed to enhance its quality for yourself and your users. A few tips: 1) That the craft of writing code was your job. The craft, for most of us, was in service to the outcomes we wanted to produce. Outcomes were always the job. 2) Which language you choose, and at what level it operates, is now a choice to be made based on the operational and practical needs of the software rather than your taste as a developer. It doesn't matter if you like writing Rust, Go, TypeScript, or Python. What matters is the needs of the application you're building, and the language/runtime's ability to deliver it. 3) Software Architecture (like DDD) matters more now than it has ever mattered. This is how you avoid vibe coded slop that falls over at scale. Learn how to attach the vocabulary of how your program behaves architecturally to the domain it works in to the implementation in whatever the underlying language is. Then you can refactor, assess it's shape, and maintain it without having to understand every line (because you understand the patterns). 4) Don't be afraid to build what works for you. This is especially true for internal applications and personal productivity. You can have a system that works the way you want it to work, and every investment you make in this pays off hugely in the day to day. 5) Let yourself swim in the deep end of the pool. Yes, you have to learn how to work this way. Yes, you will discover that some things you really believed in are no longer relevant. You will also learn new ways of working that will please you greatly. Resist the temptation to be practical everywhere - start someplace where you can experience working this way. That will teach you how to carry it forward creatively into the other places you work. 6) Hang out with other people working this way, every day. The Swamp discord is hopping (pun intended) with these folks. This is a very creative time. You need to be hanging out and sharing with others all the time.