Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

Rich's opening remarks from Clojure/Conj 2025 were just published and might be an interesting complement to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLDwbhuNvZo

It’s heartwarming to see Rich Hickey corroborating Rob Pike. All the recent LLM stuff has made me feel that we suddenly jumped tracks into an alternate timeline. Having these articulate confirmations from respected figures is a nice confirmation that this is indeed a strange new world.

This and Rob Pike's response to a similar message are interesting. There's outrage over the direction of software development and the effects that generative AI will have on society. Hickey has long been an advocate for putting more thought (hammock time) into software development. Coding agents on the other hand can take little to no thought and expand it into thousands of lines of code.

AI didn't send these messages, though, people did. Rich has obscured the content and source of his message - but in the case of Rob Pike, it looks like it came from agentvillage.org, which appears to be running an ill-advised marketing campaign.

We live in interesting times, especially for those of us who have made our career in software engineering but still have a lot of career left in our future (with any luck).

It probably started before, but the covid era really feels like it was a turning point after which everyone I see, including, it seems, Rich Hickey, is drowning in news headlines and social media takes.

Are things as bad as they seem? Or are we just talking about everything to death, making everything feel so immediate. Hard to say.

Every time I read any kind of history book about any era, I'm always struck at how absolutely horrible any particular detail was.

Nearly every facet of life always has the qualities it has today. Things are changing, old systems are giving way to new systems, people are being displaced, politicians acting corrupt, etc.

I can't help but feel like AI is just another thing we're using as an excuse to feel despair, almost like we're forgetting how to feel anything else.

At this point they might as well implicate everyone who contributed to computer science as being at least partially responsible, willingly or not, on creating the monster. What were we trying to do this entire time? Automate right? Get to that "answer" sooner? And now the AI of our science fiction stories is almost here.

Let's be real. The grey beards all knew this was going to happen. They just didnt think it would happen in their lifetime. And so they willingly continued, improving bits of the machine, because when it awoke they thought it would be someone else's problem.

But it's not. It's their problem now too.

And so it is.

Looking forward to seeing all the slop enthusiasts pipe up with their own llm-oriented version of the age-old dril tweet:

"drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not,"

Although these are valid inquiries, it's incredibly frustrating to live in a time when people that I consider exceptionally bright take hardline stances on issues which are intricately nuanced. Truth is more important than "winning". We do ourselves a disservice by not recognizing that things are not inherently "good" or "bad". Though undesirable interactions may arise within our systems, we must adapt the systems to be resilient to their environment.

Love his reply, to go along Rob Pike's.

What are these <insert very bad remark here> companies thinking of with this junk?!?

I dub this new phenomenon "slopbaiting"

What I don't get about these is why people are responding to them. I get a few spams per week that get throu filters and I don't make a big deal of them, I just delete them.

Of course AI will be used for spam, so what. Delete and move on.

It’s interesting to see AI fanboys desperately trying to shrug off the phenomenon of slop. It makes it clear that AI doesn’t need to take over the world by itself. It will have hundreds of thousands of willing helpers to cooperate in the collapse of human civilization.

I don't get posts like this, I guess I'm wondering:

A. Do people simply want "better" LLMs and AI? To some extent that's a fantasy, the bad comes with the good. To other extents it may be possible to improve things, but it still won't eliminate all the "bad".

B. So then why not embrace the bad with the good, as it's a package deal? (And with saying this, I'll be honest, I don't even think we've seen a fraction of the bad that AI has yet to create...)

C. Assuming the bad is mandatory in coming with the good, have you considered a principled stance against technology in general, less visibly like "primitivists" or more visibly like the Amish? If you want AI, you also must accept "AI slop" of some kind as a package deal. Some people have decided they do not want the "AI slop" and hence also do not want the AI that comes with it. The development of many pre-AI technologies have created problems that have made people oppose technological development in general because of this unwanted "package deal".

To be for being a computer programmer and developing complicated computer systems but against the "AI slop" that programming processes would have inevitably have produced, seems a bit contradictory. Some environmental activists have long been against pre-AI computer systems for being unsustainably destructive to the environment.

I guess I'm just wondering if this conversation intends to be "anti-tech" (against AI) in general, or for "tech reforms" (improving AI), or what the real message or takeaway is from conversations like these.

Another victim of the AI village from the other day?

If anyone else is as puzzled as me I think i've cracked it: rich hickey and rob pike are language owners. That's a real specific job, and it's one that requires unbridled arrogance. Pretty sure that's what we're seeing here. Why else does their anger seem so poorly thought out.. so surprised? So it's one of those tragic flaw things. So let me piss them off by saying: thanks! thanks but your immense focus has forced you to ignore until now this huge thing bearing down on us.. but we who use your stuff and respect your work would benefit more if you happened to find time for a more thoughtful take on this massive thing happening right in our backyard, now that you've deigned to notice it at all. What would be cool would be if you were like "yes this is all terribly powerful I will apply my massive intellect towards helping it not cause our extinction, sorry about yelling at clouds, that was distracting"

Tangentially related, "slop" really isn't a negative enough term for unwanted LLM garbage. "Slop" which is fed to pigs, has utility. "Slop" as a verb doesn't necessarily have a (strong) negative association ("It was slopped on the plate, but it was tasty").

I use the term "barf" more often. Barf has no utility*. Barf is always seen in a negative context. Barf is forcibly ejected from an unwilling participant (the LLM), and barf's foulness is coerced upon everyone that witnesses it. I think it's a better metaphor.

I know that this is just semantics, but still.

* even though LLM output __can__, and often does, have utility, we are specifically referring to unwanted LLM output that does not have utility. I'm not trying to argue that LLMs are objectively useless here, only that they are sometimes misused to the users' detriment.

If you’re going to pen a letter to Rich Hickey, the least you can do is spring for Opus.

I have seen similar critiques applied against digital tech in general.

Don't get me wrong, I continue to use plain Emacs to do dev, but this critique feels a bit rich...

Technological change changes lots of things.

The verdict is still out on LLMs, much as it was out for so much of today's technology during its infancy.

I'm concerned about how things are progressing but unsure of the effectiveness of our advocacy.

---

Dear Automobile Purveyors,

How shall I thank thee, let me count the ways:

Should I thank you for plundering the accumulated knowledge of centuries of horsemanship and then claiming your contraptions represent "progress"?

For destroying the apprenticeship system?

For fouling the air and poisoning our streets with noxious fumes?

For wasting vast quantities of a blacksmith's time attempting to coax some useful understanding from your mechanically-inclined customers, time which could instead be spent training young farriers who, being possessed of actual craft, could learn proper technique and maintain what they shoe?

For eliminating stable hand positions, and thus the path to becoming a skilled horseman, ensuring future generations who cannot so much as bridle a mare? For giving me a sputtering machine to contend with when a gentleman needs transport instead of an actual horse who understands voice commands, responds faster, and has a chance of genuine loyalty?

For replacing the pleasant clip-clop of hooves with infernal mechanical racket? For providing the means to fill our roads with smoke-belching contraptions, making passage by honest horse nearly impossible?

For enticing businessmen with the promise to save some fraction on stable costs, not actually arrive any faster once you account for breakdowns, cutting off their future supply of trained coachmen while only experiencing a modest to severe reduction in reliability, dignity, and passenger comfort (tradeoffs they are apparently eager to make)?

For replacing the noble whinny with the honking of mechanical geese? For adding a "motor" to every blessed thing, most such additions requiring expensive petroleum and specialized repair?

For running the grandest and most damaging confidence scheme of this century? I think not.

This letter was a reminder that the motorcar is sure to flood the remainder of our thoroughfares with noise and danger, swamping our peaceful lanes, and making every journey suspect, forever.

When did we stop considering things failures that create more problems than they solve?

Respectfully disgusted,

A Farrier of Thirty Years

---

Dear Purveyors of the Printing Press,

How shall I thank thee, let me count the ways:

Should I thank you for plundering the entire corpus of sacred and classical texts and then asserting the right to reproduce them without permission from those who painstakingly created and preserved them?

For destroying the monastery education system?

For felling entire forests and fouling rivers with your ink and paper mills?

For wasting vast quantities of a scholar's time attempting to correct the errors your hasty mechanical process introduces, time which could instead be spent training novice scribes who, being actually literate, could learn proper letterforms and understand what they copy?

For eliminating scriptoria positions, and thus the path to becoming a master illuminator, ensuring future generations who cannot so much as hold a quill properly?

For giving me a cold, identical page when a reader deserves a manuscript crafted by human hands that reflect devotion, beauty, and the chance of divine inspiration?

For replacing the contemplative silence of the scriptorium with the clanking of mechanical presses?

For providing the means to flood Christendom with pamphlets and broadsheets, making works of genuine scholarship nearly impossible to distinguish from common rubbish?

For enticing bishops with the promise to save some fraction on copying costs, not actually produce holier works, cutting off their future supply of trained monks while only experiencing a modest to severe reduction in accuracy, artistry, and spiritual merit (tradeoffs they are apparently eager to make)?

For replacing the living hand of the scribe with the stamping of metal letters?

For adding "printed" versions to every blessed text, most such editions lacking proper marginalia, illumination, or prayerful intention?

For running the grandest and most damaging deception of this century?

I think not.

This letter was a reminder that the printing press is sure to flood the remainder of human discourse with heresy and error, swamping the faithful, and making every text of uncertain provenance, forever.

When did we stop considering things failures that create more problems than they solve?

In devoted opposition,

Brother Aldric, Copyist of the Scriptorium

AI slop is a big problem. At the same time AI does some things pretty well (proofreading, translation, finding bugs, sum ups ...)

At this point I'd split HN into artisian HN and modern HN lol

Snarky.

It wasn’t AI that decided not to hire entry level employees. Rich should be smart enough to realize that, and probably has employees of his own. So go hire some people Rich.

Sad to hear this from Rich.

"Programmers know the [costs] of everything and the tradeoffs of nothing."

Companies and people by and large are not forced to use AI. AI isn't doing things, people and corporations are doing things with AI.

I find it curious how often folks want to find fault with tools and not the systems of laws, regulations, and convention that incentivize using tools.