March 31, 2026

Over the years I’ve written here and there about why I use hand tools for woodworking—or rather why I use the tools I do, because one of the things I’ve tried to deconstruct is this idea of “hand tool.” I can think of nine reasons I might choose not to use a given tool, all of which I’ve raised in the context of that craft:

1. It is poorly suited to the task.
2. It is, for the benefits it provides, too expensive.
3. It changes my relationship to my work in ways I do not enjoy, and the cost of that enjoyment is not justified by its benefits.
4. It changes my relationship to my work in ways I suspect will be detrimental to my craftsmanship, and therefore to my future work.
5. Its use creates externalities (e.g. environmental damage) that its benefits to me cannot justify.
6. Its creation or construction create externalities (e.g. environmental damage, poor treatment of workers) that its benefits to me cannot justify.
7. Its workings are sufficiently opaque to me that I cannot consistently trust its output, nor make the necessary adjustments to enable that trust.
8. The cost of repair is too high (or repair is impossible).
9. Its purchase or use comes with obligations or limitations I do not wish to take on (e.g. licensing agreements, frequency of repair, the need for software updates, the space it takes up in my garage, my neighbor pestering me to get it back).

Framed less negatively, I believe those make a good rubric for evaluating pretty much any sort of tool—physical or digital. Almost nothing I have read arguing against so-called AI makes a point that isn’t essentially one of those nine—that I haven’t already considered for woodworking. And/or for cooking and gardening. To those of us who have already spent decades fighting rear-guard actions against the Industrial Revolution, there’s little new to see here.

I would, however, add one more criteria, which I never thought to apply to woodworking:

10. My use of the tool for specific, justifiable purposes may appear an endorsement and therefore encourage its use for general, unjustifiable purposes.

That’s one that ought to get more consideration than it does.