I view it as a different layer of abstraction.

I _am_ a craftsman - software, wood, and a few more domains. There is a lot of personal satisfaction I find in woodcraft through the motion and the exercise. I love that this is a luxury hobby instead of a personal necessity. The difference there is that if I take my time on personal necessity where the market isn't paying for it, I may take food out of my kids' mouths or lose the roof over their head. Luxury craft hobbies face only self-imposed pressures.

AI is letting me build similarly. I can continue to craft my Rust and my Python and my Typescript and my Fortran to my heart's content - and those skills help in the day to day - yet I'm also able to compete in the market and build things that were really infeasible before.

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spacephysics 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I agree with this framing, but still trying to reconcile staying ahead of the curve without adopting full hype train or doomer mentality.

How are you keeping your “human” addition to the loop valuable, is it through the time spent on the software craftsman hobby?

Im in my early 30’s, and trying to stay ahead. I feel it was easier prior to LLM’s, and now its tough to even know where to focus skill building.

	▲	tomrod 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> How are you keeping your “human” addition to the loop valuable, is it through the time spent on the software craftsman hobby? Yes, and, integrating it into my normal tasks and delivery. Some principles: (1) I wouldn't worry so much about staying _ahead_ of the technology, rather, focus on the outcomes for yourself and the people you serve. That gives a more holistic and natural boundary when you research and adopt the technologies that help you get there. (2) I'd also focus on adopting what works best, not what is latest and greatest. Tech regressions definitely happen[1], and you know your need the best. (3) When quantifying, cost-benefit is typically focused on Benefit / Costs - 1 to give incremental lift. Unsurprisingly, if benefit is high and costs are higher, it might not be worthwhile to adopt! [1] https://roderick.dev/writing/2026-08-28-obsessing-harnesses/ forgive a small bit of self promotion, but I'm researching this exact problem with my research group, about how to quantify solum benchmaxxing, tradefoff adoption, regression, and improvement for harnesses.