The time might come when the ai just writes things like http request parsers and crypto libraries on the fly. And it will be somewhat normal
Same with a lot of software, software libraries are designed to work with the deficiencies of the human mind.
There’s no reason to think ai needs these libraries in the same way
I’m not saying the future can’t get to an ai just producing everything. I’m saying it’s just plain inefficient to keep solving the same problem over and over.
What are the incentives for doing that? What are the incentives for everyone else to move?
So if proven things exist for basics, what's the incentive to not use them? If everyone decides they're too heavy, they could make and publish new libraries and tools would pick those up. And since they're old, the feature-set is probably more nuanced than you expect. YAGNI is a motto for doing less to avoid creating code debt, but writing more net new code to avoid using a stable and proven library doesn't fit that.
Hyper-optimized HTTP request/response parsing? Yawn. Far less interesting.
AFAICT, the advantages of keeping context tight and focused have not gone away. So there would neeed to be pretty interesting advantages to not just doing the easy thing.
Build times too. I kinda doubt you're setting up strictly-modularized and tightly-controlled bazel builds for all your stuff to avoid extra recompilation... so why are we overcomplicating the easy stuff? Just because "it will probably function just as well"?
"leftpad"-level library inanity? Sure, even less need than before (there was never much). Substantial libraries? What's the point?
Hell, some of the most-used heavily-AI-coded software is going the opposite direction and jumping through hoops to keep using web libraries for UI even though they're terminal apps.
Given the choice between
A) having one AI produce a library and having 1000 produce code using that library which comes with tests human in the loop vetting documentation and examples which drastically increase the chance of the 1000 AIs doing it correctly
B) Having 1001 produce the same functionality provided by the library probably on average worse and requiring more expensive hand holding
What in that benefit of B? You might have slightly higher specificity to your use case but its more likely that the only increased specificity is shit you didn't realize you needed yet and will have to prompt and guide the AI to produce.
I fail to see how AI would obviate the need to modularize and re-use code.
I think your thought process is not taking into account what a super logical ai can do, and how effortlessly it could generate some of this code.
Real question: does your world model suppose super exponential gains in intelligence and efficiency?
Using these preexisting will all become outdated. You will look like primitive cavemen if your agents don't build these from scratch every time you build $NEXT_BIG_THING.
Even local LLMs will be able to build these from scratch by end of 2026.
The concept of using a library for everything will become outdated
It’s easy to write a cookie parser for a simple case; clearly your robot was able to hand you one for millidollars. How confident are you that you’ve exhaustively specified the exact subset of situations your code is going to encounter, so the missing functionality doesn’t matter? How confident are you that its implementation doesn’t blow up under duress? How many tokens do you want to commit to confirming that (reasoning, test, pick your poison)?
If it does come, nothing we do now really matters. If it doesn’t come and we cash a bunch of checks assuming it will, we are screwed.
I say all that mostly in jest, but to take your point somewhat seriously: the most accurate thing you’ve said is that no one is ready for super intelligence. What a great and terrible paroxysm it would be.