> AI can easily make software worse, you won’t get any argument from me there. But it can also make software better.
I agree with this in theory. But what are the actual examples of popular software becoming better thanks to AI?
I agree with this in theory. But what are the actual examples of popular software becoming better thanks to AI?
- there's not as much of that happening as it _should_ yet - where it does happen, you don't typically notice it (because typically you notice when something is bad, or broken, or slow, or buggy, and not when it is none of these things.)
The former is to the most extent a function of companies still not being confident (or smart) enough in making the right decisions on where to re-invest the productivity dividends that agentic engineering yields. It's obvious that the focus so far has been on "shipping things faster", and that there needs to be a shift towards "shipping things better".
I agree! However, the entire thrust of our industry for decades has been about "shipping things faster". In my opinion, that's the primary reason for the overall decline of software quality over the years.
At this point, changing that requires changing an entire industry's culture and priorities. Not impossible, but very unlikely.