Pluralistic: AI and amateurism (15 Jun 2026)  🔗 **Source:** [Pluralistic: AI and amateurism (15 Jun 2026)](https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/15/vernacular/) 📄 **Full text:** ![[Full Document Contents/Articles/Pluralistic AI and amateurism (15 Jun 2026).md|Pluralistic: AI and amateurism (15 Jun 2026) by pluralistic.net]] ## Highlights - If "epistemic humility" means anything, it means acknowledging that no amount of "requirements gathering" can capture the needs of people totally unlike yourself as faithfully as those users can capture their own needs. Giving people the tools to produce their own software is always going to make tools – vernacular, idiosyncratic, homespun – that are more suited to their own hands and minds than anything a technologist working on their behalf could make. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kv64t8008kj06deaa03wwhbv)) - Note: The empowerment argument: no amount of "requirements gathering" captures the needs of people unlike yourself as well as they can themselves. User-made tools — vernacular, idiosyncratic, homespun — fit their makers better than anything a technologist builds on their behalf. - Tags: atom/literature/h1, user-agency, epistemic-humility - To keep the bubble inflated, AI hucksters must promise massive economic returns to the technology. They want investors to believe that vibe code is about to replace working programmers, who are skilled, high-waged, high-demand workers. Their pitch is that for every million dollars' worth of programmers that an AI salesman and a boss conspire to fire, half a million dollars will go to the AI company whose bots shit out that vibe code. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kv64t0xtp7p70kq9ce3s07bz)) - Note: The bubble's economic logic: the pitch is replacing high-waged programmers — "for every million dollars' worth of programmers... fired, half a million goes to the AI company." Replacement (not empowerment) is what justifies the valuations. - Tags: atom/literature/h1, labor, ai-bubble - History isn't finished. Long after the AI bubble pops, there will be local models and people vibe coding homemade software that respond directly to their needs. The stuff we make on our own computers, for ourselves, is deplatformed from its inception. It's part of the life we can build in technology's "shadowy corners" that we used to just call "technology." The fact that this stuff is utterly unsuited to be production code makes it inherently unmonetizable. It's how the street finds its own use for things: ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kv64sjqkwsj4gbry1kdyytnd)) - Note: The hopeful core: after the bubble pops, local models + vibe-coded homemade software remain — "deplatformed from its inception," unmonetizable precisely because it's not production code. "The street finds its own use for things." - Tags: atom/literature/h1, vernacular-technology, local-ai