People of Programming

This is an initiative to bring together people who resist the displacement of the programming community by AI: we believe computer programs are not merely by-products of AI models, but have great intrinsic value and beauty of their own. Our main goal is not to send a message to, or demand resources from people in positions of power, but to find and support each other.

If you identify as a person of programming and share our values, please consider signing our declaration (by opening a pull request to this repository), and joining our Zulip organization.

FAQ

Are you anti-AI?

We have diverse opinions on AI: some of us embrace it in our day-to-day work, and some of us want nothing to do with it. However, we share a common belief: there is much to computing outside of AI, and the resources currently allocated to AI within computing are disproportionate.

I love programming, but also work on AI. Do I belong?

Yes! We are trying to make friends, not enemies. If you work on AI, you are also more likely to influence decisions made by people in control of resources. Please note we are focusing on the parts of computing that are not AI; "AI for X" already has enough support.

Why GitHub?

GitHub has many issues, but most programmers understand how to use it. At this early stage, we want to reduce the friction for people to join.

We have also set up a mirror at sourcehut where you can send patches without an account using git send-mail.