Of all the forms of tech debt, decoherence is the worst. It compounds exponentially with a system's rate of change, and AI is now producing it faster than ever, leading us deeper and deeper into the abyss...
Very good writing, and I agree with the analysis. I might disagree that this is a bad thing, though. With these tools and the impossibility of having a globally coherent software stack clearly there will be problems, but there are also positive outcomes, meaning more autonomy at the local level because their corner of the maze is inscrutable. For the Engineer’s mind this is a net negative, but these tools will enable non-technical people to produce “broken by default” software that serves their purpose without having to cohere with a bigger system as it is now. This means, in many ways, undermining Big Tech and creating more technological autonomy for local communities. Obviously the Engineer is not concerned with this stuff, but it’s part of the picture: the monopoly of the Engineer might be over.
Hmm. So, funnily enough, this is close to where I’ll end up near the end of my essays, in terms of where I think tech should be going. But the thing is, I think to get there we actually need to push more deeply into better abstractions and a more coherent ecosystem.
I discuss this a bit in my AI usage policy in the section on code. Specifically, the idea behind a universal design system, which would enable much more flexible UIs driven by agentic development, but on much stricter guard rails that would prevent decoherence from seeping into the core layers and leave it just on the surface.
Very good writing, and I agree with the analysis. I might disagree that this is a bad thing, though. With these tools and the impossibility of having a globally coherent software stack clearly there will be problems, but there are also positive outcomes, meaning more autonomy at the local level because their corner of the maze is inscrutable. For the Engineer’s mind this is a net negative, but these tools will enable non-technical people to produce “broken by default” software that serves their purpose without having to cohere with a bigger system as it is now. This means, in many ways, undermining Big Tech and creating more technological autonomy for local communities. Obviously the Engineer is not concerned with this stuff, but it’s part of the picture: the monopoly of the Engineer might be over.
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Hmm. So, funnily enough, this is close to where I’ll end up near the end of my essays, in terms of where I think tech should be going. But the thing is, I think to get there we actually need to push more deeply into better abstractions and a more coherent ecosystem.
I discuss this a bit in my AI usage policy in the section on code. Specifically, the idea behind a universal design system, which would enable much more flexible UIs driven by agentic development, but on much stricter guard rails that would prevent decoherence from seeping into the core layers and leave it just on the surface.
score 1 · canonical