THE CARPENTER AND THE BOY WITH THE HAMMER
A reflection on how we learned to see the world through fashionable tools.
AI as the Worldview Manager — the shape of the solution.
And this is where AI enters the story.
AI is the first participant in the history of computing that is not subject to fashion.
It has no tribe, no prestige economy, no career incentives, no sunk‑cost bias.
It does not care whether the industry prefers sets or hierarchies or objects or graphs.
It can look at the shape of the problem and choose the worldview that fits.
AI is the first participant in the history of computing that is not subject to fashion.
It has no tribe, no prestige economy, no career incentives, no sunk‑cost bias.
It does not care whether the industry prefers sets or hierarchies or objects or graphs.
It can look at the shape of the problem and choose the worldview that fits.
For years, developers fantasised about a VR‑headset that would let them walk through their systems — hierarchies as rooms, objects as corridors, graphs as cities. But what we needed was never a visual device. We needed an epistemic one. An AI‑headset that could choose the right worldview before choosing the tool.
AI can be the carpenter.
this domain is hierarchical → use a physical tree
this domain is relational → use sets
this domain is networked → use a graph
this domain is document‑shaped → use a document model
this domain is temporal → use a time‑series engine
this domain is probabilistic → use Bayesian structures
this domain is relational → use sets
this domain is networked → use a graph
this domain is document‑shaped → use a document model
this domain is temporal → use a time‑series engine
this domain is probabilistic → use Bayesian structures
The worldview comes first.
The tool comes second.
This is the inversion we’ve been waiting for.
Not AI writing SQL, but AI deciding whether SQL is even the right worldview.
Not AI generating code, but AI choosing the lens through which the problem should be seen.
Not AI generating code, but AI choosing the lens through which the problem should be seen.
The boy with the hammer sees nails everywhere.
The carpenter sees the shape of the wood.