{"slug": "what-ai-developers-could-learn-from-charles-bukowski", "title": "What AI developers could learn from Charles Bukowski?", "summary": "A blog post draws parallels between Charles Bukowski's approach to writer's block and the need for AI developers to prioritize quality over quantity, citing Bukowski's poems 'the block' and 'the trash can' to argue against the Silicon Valley obsession with overwork and the rush to ship code. The author references a discussion between Jaron Lanier and Neil deGrasse Tyson, where Tyson suggests AI could have freed him to spend more time on the beach, yet observes that tech workers instead embrace 996 schedules and high PR volumes.", "body_md": "# What AI developers could learn from Charles Bukowski?\n\nPublished:Allow me to jump straight in:\n\nnow I have become spoiled,\n\nI walked into here tonight expecting\n\nmore luck\n\nbut the night has been slow.\n\nand rightfully so—\n\noccurrence must precede action,\n\nthe tank must refill./…/\n\nwhen the lulls arrive there is\n\nnothing to do but\n\nwait,\n\ndo other things./…/\n\nthere are other things to do.\n\nlike now I am going downstairs\n\nto see my wife\n\nand my 6 cats/…/\n\nit will be all right.\n\nI’m sure it\n\nwill.they might even remember me.\n\n– an excerpt from the **\"block\"** by Charles Bukowski.\n\nCharles is describing a writers block. Then he's being wise and self-conscious about it and instead of forcing himself to write **more** **slop** (or *ill words* in his world) he stands up, moves away from his ~~computer~~ notebook and goes downstairs to his wife and 6 cats.\nHe knows this block is temporal and things will – *presumably soon* – be all right. Actually, he's *sure* of that.\n\nSo why do we, developers supercharged with AI tools, have a sudden urge to spend more time building software than ever? Silicon valley, since its inception, has been obsessed with working crazy hours, or at least that's what successful folks in their autobiographies told us. Charles knew that more output does not equal quality output.\n\nEven before the AI, he was okay to throw away work that didn't cut the mustard 👇🏻\n\n## the trash can\n\nthis is great, I just wrote two\n\npoems I didn't like.\n\nthere is a trash can on this\n\ncomputer.\n\nI just moved the poems\n\nover\n\nand dropped them into\n\nthe trash can.\n\n/…/\n\nit's always better\n\nto reject yourself before\n\nthe editors do.\n\n/…/\n\n– an excerpt from **\"the trash can\"** by Charles Bukowski.\n\nIn [a recent discussion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_ZKYH8v_do) between **Jaron Lanier** (*that geeky dreadlocks scientist who also makes music*) and **Neil deGrasse Tyson** (*that geeky astrophysicist who wrote a book on that subject for normal people that I still didn't understand*),\nNeil said that he has written around 50,000 lines of code –\nand spent awful lot of time doing so – which AI models today produce in seconds. Then he said:\n\nIf I had access [to AI] back then, I'd probably just spendmore time on the beach.\n\nPreach on! But… how come we don't see this happening? Why aren't tech folks sipping tequilas on the beach?\n\nWhy are we instead witnessing a **996** phenomenon.\nWhy is there a sudden urge to ship 4,500 PRs per day?\nHow many of those PRs have improved anything for our users (*to those lucky enough to have users*) or solve \"a\" problem actual people – not personas – verbally **said** they have?\n\nWould we be more creative if we wandered off to listen to people about ideas we're trying to build?\n\nBut maybe the fact that Bukowski turned his inability to write into a poem about his inability to write, and\nwrote \"the trash can\" about poems he deleted…\n\nMaybe that's enough to give us all a FOMO, so I'm off vibe-coding my next zero-time Pulitzer Prize winning startup.\n\nPS: If you enjoyed this read, here's part 2: [What AI developers could learn from Ernest Hemingway?](https://galjot.si/what-ai-developers-could-learn-from-ernest-hemingway)\n\nIf you enjoyed the \"block\" or \"the trash can\", consider buying [ Betting on the Muse](https://www.amazon.com/Betting-Muse-Stories-Charles-Bukowski-ebook/dp/B000SG19BK),\na collection of poetry and short stories by Charles Bukowski.\n\n[blog comments powered by Disqus](//disqus.com)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-ai-developers-could-learn-from-charles-bukowski", "canonical_source": "https://galjot.si/what-ai-developers-could-learn-from-charles-bukowski", "published_at": "2026-07-28 13:00:12+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-28 13:37:17.195491+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-ethics", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["Charles Bukowski", "Jaron Lanier", "Neil deGrasse Tyson"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-ai-developers-could-learn-from-charles-bukowski", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-ai-developers-could-learn-from-charles-bukowski.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-ai-developers-could-learn-from-charles-bukowski.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/what-ai-developers-could-learn-from-charles-bukowski.jsonld"}}