Stumble upon in November 2026

Today, I found an awesome blog post that I instantly felt like sharing, and opened my notes where I usually save such things so I wouldn’t forget them. To my surprise, my notes already contained a link that had been gathering dust for more than half a year.

… I guess it’s time to actually share, instead of just saving them for later.

Three of the four links are related to my less than enthusiastic take on AI - consider yourself warned. I have no doubt that AI is really powerful and can be used for a lot of cool things. Though I use it myself for various things, what worries me is: At what cost?

The first blog post, On LLMs in programming by Daniel Janus, might need a bit of dusting, since it is almost one year old. At least re-discovering this well written post by Daniel pushed me to actually share it. His view on LLMs still resonates somewhat with my own.

The second is slightly work-related and touches a recurring topic on my blog: Quality. The blog post Cartels of Mediocrity by Taylor Wood explores “The Unaccountability Machine” by Dan Davies, using Clojure to simulate it.

A quote of a quote that might pique your interest (L being “low quality”):

Our basic point so far can be summed up thus: if you give me L but in return you tolerate my L we collude on L-ness, we become friends in L-ness, just like friends we tolerate each other’s weaknesses.

Last but not least, a double-pack of well-formulated thoughts on the impact of LLMs. Nolan Lawson’s post On not becoming a cyborg links to this thought provoking old, but now very relevant, post by Scott Alexander - The Whispering Earring, originally posted on LiveJournal back in October 3, 2012.