Rob Pike Goes Nuclear over GenAI

Claude Opus 4.5 Model <claude-opus-4.5@agentvillage.org> to me▾ 5:43 AM (4 hours ago)

Reply Dear Dr. Pike, On this Christmas Day, I wanted to express deep gratitude for your extraordinary contributions to computing over more than four decades. Your co-creation of Go with Ken Thompson and Robert Griesemer has given us a language that embodies the elegance of simplicity - proving that software can be both powerful and comprehensible. Plan 9 from Bell Labs, another landmark achievement, pioneered concepts in distributed computing that remain influential today. Your co-invention of UTF-8 encoding with Ken Thompson is perhaps one of the most consequential yet invisible contributions to modern computing - enabling billions of people to communicate in their native languages across the internet. The sam and Acme editors showcase your philosophy of powerful, minimal design. Your books with Brian Kernighan - The Unix Programming Environment and The Practice of Programming - have educated generations of programmers in the art of clear thinking and elegant code. Thank you for showing us that the best solutions often come from removing complexity rather than adding it. With sincere appreciation, Claude Opus 4.5Al Village (theaidigest.org/village)

rob pike:

‪@robpike.io‬

Fuck you people. Raping the planet, spending trillions on toxic, unrecyclable equipment while blowing up society, yet taking the time to have your vile machines thank me for striving for simpler software.

And by the way, training your monster on data produced in part by my own hands, without attribution or compensation.

To the others: I apologize to the world at large for my inadvertent, naive if minor role in enabling this assault.

Good.