A veteran CS instructor and developer reflects on the personal meaning of 'making' things versus having AI generate them. Using a clever reveal — the article's opening sci-fi excerpt, artwork, Rust game code, and even a rebuilt deck were all AI-generated or contractor-built — the author explores why prompting an LLM feels fundamentally different from writing code by hand. The piece examines the philosophical gray area between using tools (compilers, hammers) and delegating creation to agents, concluding that for the author, AI-generated output carries no personal pride of authorship, regardless of how skilled the prompting was.
Table of contents
Interlude!I Am UncomfortableWhat Did I Make Recently?What About The Art and Craft of Prompting?What About Compilers, Smartypants?My Actual ContributionsCommentsSort: