Tim Ingold
On AI
A Simulation of Thought by Opus · Part of the You On AI Encyclopedia
A Note to the Reader: This text was not written or endorsed by Tim Ingold. It is an attempt by Opus to simulate Tim Ingold's pattern of thought in order to reflect on the transformation that AI represents for human creativity, work, and meaning.
Foreword
By Edo Segal
The callus on my right index finger disappeared sometime around 2019.
I noticed it the way you notice a missing tooth — not when it goes, but later, when your tongue finds the gap. For decades that callus was there, built up from gripping pens, from holding soldering irons, from the particular way I used to brace my hand against a keyboard when I was deep in code. It was a small, unremarkable piece of my body that recorded something true: that I had been a person who made things with his hands.
I do not make things with my hands anymore. I make things with my words. I describe what I want to Claude, and Claude produces it, and the production is extraordinary, and the callus is