Weeknote 9

I've been thinking (and doing) a bit more around AI this week than i normally do. My starting point is a really sceptical prejudice against the ongoing buzz, from an ethical standpoint e.g. bias, copyright theft, negative environmental impact, but i've been trying to put that aside a little bit, if only to gain better understanding and knowledge, before probably returning to a similar, but more informed headspace.
I enjoyed reading Careful Industries 'Five lessons for careful adoption of AI' it resonated with me and i'm very much in the "It’s possible to be both careful and curious about technology adoption" camp.
As a developer in a previous life I thought i'd test out some of the new tools that are available, specifically Replit and V0, both give a tempting promise of 'conversational programming' accelerating the process from idea, to prototype, to production, and iteration. I was impressed with my early experience of both, and my reflection is that i can see real value in speeding the prototyping and iteration space, however i haven't spent enough time and credits to know whether i could deliver something into production. I think both could deliver a really quick on-ramp for a developer to put the boilerplate in place, to then build on. Obviously the ethical considerations are still front of my mind (e.g. whose IP has been stolen to train the models), but i understand better now how tantalising it can be to sell your soul to the AI devil for the promise of an easier development ride.
My 2nd foray into AI exploration has been around the agent space e.g. N8N's 'ai powered workflow automation', CrewAI, Autogen, etc. Again, there is something very compelling to me around the idea of me having a small army of agents doing my bidding. However, what i found when i started working on N8N's albeit really cool platform, is i started having some interesting conversations about a) what i could automate b) what i should automate and c) an almost existential conversation with myself about what i am as a worker and what i want to be as a worker. This started as i was working through a tutorial around completely automating a content research and generation pipeline e.g. for generating blog or newsletter content, but i guess applicable to other areas. I found the idea of designing agents that worked in collaboration e.g. the tutorial i was following had separate agents working on different parts of the pipeline e.g. a QA/editor agents approving/providing feedback/rejecting content drafts. It really struck me though, just because i can automate something doesn't mean i should, and what is the impact on my identify and sense of self, let alone how i feel about my work, if i did.
so much of what i do is about learning from thinking, talking and writing, if i offload this to a bunch of agents, what am i learning? For example, I could use an AI to write a strategy, i could prompt it enough that it had enough contextual awareness to write something approximating what i was after (and be as good as a large percentage of strategies that get written), but seeing a written strategy as the outcome misses the point that a large part of the value in defining a strategy is in the thinking, conversations and hypothesising and testing that is involved in the development. If i outsource these things to AI then i've had a zero calorie meal, i've in no way nourished myself or others through the process. So whats the end goal of this? If I start to use agents to automate things that i feel are actually of value to me as a worker? I guess i start to stagnate, i may become dependent on them, but i think more importantly i start to change my perception of my self, and i don't think i want that, becuase i don't think i've thought hard enough about what my new sense of self might be.
So, having messed around with AI i'm a bit more informed about the tool landscape, but i'm also both a bit more informed, but also reflective of how uninformed i am on how i might make use of tools that might fundamentally shift how i think of myself, who i am as a worker, and how i want to think of myself as a worker.
We've done some really good work recently, however not all of it has gone as well as we would have liked. My focus is always on learning, if we aren't learning then we aren't growing, and if we aren't creating opportunities for ourselves to learn from things that haven't gone well, then we aren't doing a good job. That all makes perfect sense to me. However, i'm conscious that this way of thinking doesn't complete mitigate the rugpull sensation when we realise something hasn't quite gone how we want it to. I guess the way i think about that rugpull sensation is what is it telling me about myself and others who are feeling it? it means we care and we are self-aware enough to understand that things can be better, what more can we ask of ourselves?
Friday nights news and social media regarding the Orange narcissistic fascist and his cadre of cxnts, triggered anxiety and anger in me in a way that i've not experienced before. I'm now actively avoiding the news and minimising use of socials to try and help myself. I've also sought out tiny ways to help me feel like i've done something positive with my reaction, there are a few links at the end of this blog.
I completed my 6th Parkrun on Saturday, this time at Dereham (as part of my ongoing mission to complete all Norfolk Parkruns in 2025). A mainly uneven field, mud and gravel course that i didn't think was conducive to a good time, however i managed 24:00, which i would claim to be my 5k PB (dereham parkrun say its a 5k course), however my watch reckons it was only 4.81k, which is annoying, as i reckon if i had done another 190 metres, i'd have still done a PB. Only potential issue with my plan to do all 22 norfolk park runs is i've definitely developed 'Runners Knee', its not too painful yet, only about a 2/10, but i know its there and i need to learn from past experience and listen to my body and give the runs a rest for a few weeks, which is annoying because i also really want to maintain consistency in knocking off the norfolk parkruns :(

3 links to help Ukraine:
you can
Donate to Ukraine's defenders
and/or
Donate to the Red Cross in Ukraine
and/or if you are a UK citizen you can add your signature to this petition to Grant automatic visa extension and ILR for Ukrainians after 5 years to help those who have fled the war.