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This is a fun thought experiment. What is a tool? What distinguishes a tool from any object used in a make-shift way in place of a specific tool?

The author is making the argument that AI systems are not tools. I don’t find the argument compelling, but I do still think it opens up an interesting discussion. Here is the crux of their argument:

Tools are not just “things you can use in a way”, they are objects that have been designed with great intent for a set of specific problems, objects that through their design make their intended usage obvious and clear (specialized tools might require you to have a set of domain knowledge to have that clarity). In a way tools are a way to transfer knowledge: Knowledge about the problem and the solutions are embedded in the tool through the design of it.

Simon Willison has a good comment in the lobsters thread:

An LLM is a tool for turning input text that contains instructions into output text that follows those instructions.

If a laptop computer or a blank piece of paper is a tool, then an LLM is a tool. All three have an incredibly wide range of potential uses, many of which were never dreamed of by their creators.

If we aren’t allowed to call those “tools” then I guess we need a new word that describes them.

Via: lobsters