I got nerd-sniped right before work and just had to write this post.
In AI code and software craft, Alex looks at AI through the lens of Jacques Ellul’s “technique.”
Jacques Ellul describes his concept of “technique” as the reduction of activity to a set of efficient means to a measured and defined end — a way of thinking dominant in modernity.
He argues that an arts and crafts style movement that focuses on craftsmanship can stave off the totality of technique. I’m all for arts and crafts, but that view is at odds with Ellul’s view. Ellul believed that technique was “inevitable” and all-consuming and unstoppable, like the smoke monster in Lost.
Andrew Feenberg’s viewpoint is actually more in line with Alex’s conclusion. Feenberg took a more hopeful view that technology can be democratized by injecting human values. And there’s some evidence to back that up.
For example, the “technique” of the 19th-century factory was brutal efficiency. But through unions and laws (human agency), we forced the technique to adapt to child labor laws and safety standards. Efficiency was curbed by social values.
Feenberg showed us a few ways to push back against Technique.
1. Redefine efficiency
Donald Knuth, a renowned computer scientist, invented literate programming, which redefined the way we write code – by putting us humans first. In literate programming you start with prose and interject code, rather than writing code and sprinkling in comments. He inverted the existing model from speed of implementation to ease of understanding.
Similarly, Feenberg would redefine AI by building AI tools that optimize for maintainability, readability, and beauty.
2. Subversive rationalization
In the 1980s, the French government distributed the Minitel (a proto-internet terminal) to millions of homes. The technique goal was bureaucratic efficiency: to modernize the phone directory and deliver government information. It was cold, rational, and top-down.
Instead, users hacked the system. They ignored the government directories and turned the network into a massive, chaotic instant-messaging service. They used the machine for flirting, arguing, and socializing. The users subverted the rational design. They took a tool of control and turned it into a tool of communication.
In other words, don’t just boycott AI. Misuse it.
3. Primary vs. secondary instrumentalization
Feenberg distinguishes between two layers of technology. To overcome technique, we have to re-integrate them. The primary instrumentalization is the raw technical aspect. For code that means purely technical, decontextualized logic. The second instrumentalization is social, aesthetic, and ethical context. The code is elegant and respects the user’s privacy. To unify the two, we must demand that the second instrumentalization be integrated into the first.
Wennerberg is right to identify the “slop” as a threat, but wrong to suggest we can defeat it with nostalgia. Retreating to “software arts and crafts” doesn’t change anything (I’m still for it though); it merely leaves the engine of modern society running on autopilot, optimized only for profit.
Feenberg offers a harder, but more effective path: don’t abandon the machine – hack it. By embedding human values into our definitions of efficiency and refusing to accept raw functionality as the final standard, we stop being victims of technique. The goal is not to escape the future, but to shape it.
Now it’s time for me to go write some code.
