Linus Torvalds, legendary coder and creator of the operating system Linux, recently spoke out about the dangers of coding with AI.

The upshot? AI is a tremendous tool for coder productivity, but used without understanding of the code it’s writing is dangerous/bad.

It’s hard to argue with that logic.

It’s like asking a room full of people: “Do you believe children should be safe?” Not one person in a million is going to answer no to that question.

But black boxes (things we use but don’t understand how they work) are all around us daily.

If we take an airplane to a conference, do we know all the systems keeping us in the air?

When we drive a car, do we know the intricacies of the internal combustion engine?

When a teenager grows a following on TikTok, do they have any clue how the algorithm works or how their data is being used?

When any of us signs the terms & conditions of any app, do we really know what we’re agreeing to?

Our whole society runs on black boxes. And the thought of coding “blindly trusting AI” is scary. But the reality is, the kind of security issues AI presents were already present in many other forms. Even coding by hand, we have to trust that our compiler isn’t taking our human code and injecting something malicious when it translates our work into machine language, something even the most skilled real programmer doesn’t understand.

I get it. It’s terrifying.

But the reality is? This ship sailed the first time our ancestors used a tool.

It’s what we do. We invent things, and we become completely, hopelessly reliant on them. How else do you think we got into this mess?

To Steve Jobs in 1980, it was obvious that the personal computer was going to be a ”bicycle for the mind.”

But it wasn’t obvious to the people listening to his keynote, or the millions of people who didn’t believe him at the time.

The point: What is obvious to you isn’t obvious to everyone else.

You see things from a unique vantage point. No one else has your perspective.

Instead of looking for something clever to say to your audience, consider stating what is obvious to you.

You might be surprised how not obvious it is to everyone else.

In 1896, the world’s first speeding ticket was issued to Walter Arnold for driving at the “breakneck” speed of 8 mph.

From then until the Formula 1 of today, think of how many technological improvements cars have undergone.

For decades, it probably seemed like cars would just keep getting faster and faster as technology improved.

And yet, here we are 130 years later, and we can’t drive faster than 65 in most places.

Claude just released Fable (which was awesome), and our government immediately yanked it off the market. It’s still not back.

Does this mean we’ve gotten to the first speed limit set for AI? The point after which no future AI models can be used by ordinary people—at any price—even though Formula 1 models will continue to get better behind closed doors?

I’m sorry world for bringing the concept of an AI speed limit into existence, but you can expect my metaphor to be picked up by governments and used—I guess I’m channeling my inner Frank Luntz.

The speed limit is a powerful metaphor because it signals that there is already precedent for arbitrarily limiting technological advancement in the name of the greater good.

If this is true, and we’re setting the AI speed limit today, then for the average Joe the arms race of AI is already over. Because it’s not like any future AI models will be less powerful than the ones already banned.

Or maybe we’re going 8 mph, and this will all seem quite silly in a few years.

We all got to experience the joys of letting AI write for us.

Awesome!

We learned that LLMs could spin up 2,000 LinkedIn posts in the time it would have taken us to write one.

We learned that we could automate our entire content creation process, so we’d never have to think or be original again.

And it was glorious!

For a time.

But now, we must put away childish things.

We must remember what it’s like to think thoughts, have opinions, and write them ourselves.

Because if I had to read only one author’s writing for eternity, it’d probably be Douglas Adams, not GPT 5.5, ya feel me?

(Hint hint. Nudge nudge. Wink wink.)

Boy, this is a tough one to write for the LinkedIn crowd in this day and age.

We live in a time where so many professionals are questioning their career choices (I thought everyone said I should learn to code!?), and on a deeper level, questioning their value as people.

It’s hard to know what we should stand up for, and what we should accept.

When it comes to our ethics, our morals, our wages, or the box we’re put into by others—it’s easier to ride the wave than to stand up for ourselves.

It’s easier to slowly degrade into someone else’s view of our potential.

And history is littered with ambitious, highly intelligent people who fought for what was right and got punished for it.

In the short term? I can’t promise that standing up for yourself and your value will give you what you want.

But that’s the thing about choices made based on morals and ethics: they may not be lucrative, but they are right.

And being right is important.

Whether the world recognizes our actions or not, we have to believe that doing the right thing is its own reward.

And who knows what good is waiting for you on the other side of reclaiming your true worth?