Recently, I've seen a lot of discussions about clawdbot, overwhelmingly focused on how to improve efficiency, how to help oneself reply to messages, and how to take over the computer to get work done. It made me truly realize one thing.
Over the past two years, new technologies, applications, and AI plugins have emerged one after another. Whether it's self-media promotions or users shouting slogans, the talk is always about various disruptions, revolutions, and leaps in efficiency. Regardless of whether they're using marketing rhetoric or sharing user experiences, I've noticed that only one word keeps recurring: work.
Everyone is using these so-called "rapidly evolving" tools to work. But the problem is, the more they hype them up, the more similar their outputs seem to me. I always felt something was off but couldn't pinpoint why. Now, I finally understand.
Because aside from work, these things hardly offer any other value.
"Configure the tools well and let them work for me 24/7."
This statement, in itself, is highly alarming.
This narrative not only negates the value of individual labor but also the value of labor itself. If a task can be automated around the clock simply by configuring tools, it only means your labor has no "premium," and the task itself holds minimal value. In other words, it lacks scarcity and doesn't require judgment costs.
From a market logic perspective, any output that can be replicated at low cost, on a large scale, and automatically is unlikely to command a premium, let alone dignity. The obsession with automation is essentially admitting that one is engaged in labor that can be replaced at any moment, just phrased in a more respectable way.
These highly hyped AI tools are nothing more than highly homogenized copy-pasting.
They ultimately point toward an automated process with no room for premium. Their commonalities far outweigh their differences, with distinctions between products often limited to interfaces and packaging (and even the interfaces are extremely similar). This is why it's hard to explain exactly what makes a particular "innovative" tool irreplaceable or what it can truly change.
As the design goals and forms of various tools increasingly converge, the tools themselves gradually lose their distinct outlines in users' minds. When everyone uses the same logic to "work fully automatically," the result can only be increasingly flat architectures, increasingly average code, and systems increasingly lacking in flexibility.
The so-called efficiency improvements often merely postpone complexity rather than eliminate it from the system.
But the most ironic part is the programmers who hype all this up.
In reality, most programmers are indeed engaged in moving a pile of technical debt from point A to point B. This repetitive labor often stems from organizational structures, decision-making processes, and various office politics and performative overtime, making it difficult for individuals to escape. Yet, strangely, they get excited about "using different tools to move the same pile of technical debt."
Hundreds of AI tools have emerged in the market, specifically designed to speed up moving technical debt. Programmers complain about repetitive labor while simultaneously taking pride in having a more convenient tool. Instead of moving toward using tools to amplify their creativity, they stay put, using various laser shovels with ambient lighting to dig themselves deeper into the hole.
Their division, in my view, resembles the absurdity of the myth of Sisyphus, with the added irony that they also play the role of the punishing gods. Punishing themselves—nothing could be more bizarre.
When the software industry completely devolves into a traditional industry.
From the "incompetent revelry" within the programmer community, it seems the software industry has now completely devolved into a traditional industry.
Most people in the industry know that the problems in many systems stem either from insufficient communication of requirements or inadequate testing. These insufficiencies often arise from unreasonable deadlines. Many so-called urgent tasks are merely the result of temporary decisions or a leader's whim—a consequence of out-of-control project management. The real requirements of a normal project are limited. What's infinite are the constantly changing opinions, the political consumption in meeting rooms, and the performative processes where something that could be said in one sentence is dragged out for hours of discussion.
In such an environment, it's natural for a piece-rate logic centered on man-hours and delivery speed to emerge. This distortion of a knowledge-work industry into piece-rate handicraft is continuously squeezing an industry that should be centered on thinking and design.
When an industry starts pursuing undifferentiated speed while no longer caring about unique logic and judgment, its evolution has essentially stagnated.
The tools in our hands may be more advanced than ever, but if the work content still revolves around chaotic decisions and historical legacy issues, even the shiniest tools only serve to increase the efficiency of self-consumption.
This kind of progress may look lively, but in reality, it's more like an elaborate form of self-consolation.