The Reproduction of Skill

Walter Benjamin analyzed the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. The parallel question in the AI age concerns something adjacent but distinct: the reproduction of skill. When the machine reproduces the output of a skilled practitioner — the code, the brief, the diagnosis, the design — something is reproduced and something is lost. What is reproduced is the artifact: the functional code, the competent brief, the plausible diagnosis, the serviceable design. What is lost is the relationship between the maker and the made — the specific attention that the skilled practitioner brought to the work, the history of decisions, mistakes, corrections, and judgments that produced not merely the artifact but the practitioner herself.