CONCEPT
Free and Regulated Workmanship
Pye's finer distinction within risk workmanship — between work in which the maker has maximum latitude for judgment and work constrained by jigs, templates, or procedures that predetermine certain dimensions of the result.
Free workmanship is work in which the maker's latitude is maximum: every decision is the maker's own, guided by skill and judgment rather than constrained by apparatus. Regulated workmanship constrains some dimensions through jigs, templates, or procedures while leaving others open to judgment. Most actual practice occupies positions along this spectrum rather than at either pole. The furniture maker who uses a dovetail template engages in regulated workmanship — the template determines angle and spacing, the maker determines depth, fit, and finish. AI collaboration occupies a distinctive position on this spectrum: the human is free in the direction of the work (what to ask, how to frame, what to accept) and constrained in the medium itself (the model's output has its own regulation — tendencies toward coherence, synthesis, polish, a characteristic register that resists certain directions).
In The You On AI Field Guide
The spectrum framing resolves a confusion that pervades the AI discourse. Critics who call Claude