Links: Week of 31 Jul 2026
Should You Use AI for a Task? Here’s a Simple Way to Decide
The best way I’ve found to explain the dilemma comes from the AI researcher Daniel Meissler: it’s the difference between work and the gym.
At work, if your job is to move a bunch of heavy things from one side of the room to another, you should use whatever assistive tech you have on hand: a wagon, a forklift… even an AI-powered robot. But at the gym, it makes no sense for that robot to lift weights for you. The point of weightlifting isn’t to move heavy things across the room; it’s to actually lift those heavy things.
The same analysis holds for any task an AI can do for you. If it’s work—if the task has to be done and no one cares how—then it’s fine to use AI assistance. But if the task is more like the gym, and how the task is done is at least as important, then it probably doesn’t make sense to use AI.
Great analogy and a contender for the best link of the year.
- J
i can’t believe someone solved recipe design decades ago and everyone just decided to ignore it
A revolution is unfolding. Voters everywhere are furious.
We summon a car in three minutes. A package arrives the same day. AI answers complicated questions in seconds, and does more complex work that took people months in mere minutes. Naturally, citizens begin to expect similar efficiency from government. But democracy is not designed for speed. It is designed for legitimacy. It bargains, compromises, consults courts, protects vulnerable groups and balances competing interests. Those safeguards are precisely what distinguish democracy from authoritarianism. Yet in an age shaped by technology’s warp speed, they increasingly look like paralysis.
Light posting continues. Wonder if this is a sign that its time to start writing rather than linking?